4. Brick

Many global cultures have traditions of clay or mud brick construction. Evidence exists of fired brick being used as long ago as 5000 bce in Mesopotamia. The role of brick in modern architecture differed to those of the technical innovations of iron, steel, and reinforced concrete. The adoption of brick represented instead a challenge to the hard-line view of modernity as a rejection of history, understanding modern architecture as a continuation of history. ‘Brick’ discusses the concepts of local and national architectures and critical regionalism, highlighting the monumentality and order of the work of Louis Kahn, including one of his last projects, the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad.