A new genius loci

The spirit of the place

Ever since my student days, the genius loci has been a frequently recurring concept in architecture. Usually it refers to the uniqueness, history and experience of a place. As an architect, referring to the spirit of the place means thinking about the context of a building site, about local building traditions and scales, but also about atmosphere and experience.

Building with brick can help make that possible. The Netherlands has a long tradition of building with brick. The raw materials are widely available here. From river clay from the Maas, Waal, Rhine, Lek and IJssel rivers to sea clay from the coastal areas in the north and loess from the south. The latter was also the subject of my own graduation project.

Because we have seen it all around us for so long, I believe that building with brick in the Netherlands will simply produce a building faster that people understand, and that they feel attracted to and even at home with.

How far would I be willing to go?

That LEVS is a true brick architect is why I have always appreciated it. The craft of the material and the craftsmanship of the masonry are important subjects here. But it is also clear that a lot is about to change. Shorter construction times, more compact construction sites in inner cities, the ever-increasing shortage of masons, and the importance of sustainability are helping to ensure that more and more buildings may appear to be masonry, but are not at all. Increasingly, they do not even consist of full-size bricks at all. Instead, they are prefabricated elements with thin brick strips that are inlaid like tiles and poured or glued over concrete. We also do this ourselves nowadays. Or they are mineral strips that look like bricks but are not at all. We don't work with that yet. Some renovations involve keeping the brick façade, then demolishing the actual building behind it and building a completely new one. On the one hand, all this may offer a solution. But I also wonder how far we should go to design a building that matches the genius loci in appearance, when it is essentially an imitation. Interestingly enough, I find that while I can still accept a prefabricated element with glued-on bricks, mineral strips feel like a step too far.

A new genius loci

Within the firm, we often discuss the importance of the "veracity" of the material. For the purists among us, clay brick from our own soil is important, because of its connection to history and because it is proven to hold value. Yet, in cost, durability and speed of construction, there is plenty to disagree on.

But if we also include, under the genius loci, in a broader sense the conditions of the current situation, it may not fit at all anymore to build with brick. So in finding solutions to the densification question and the climate problem, I think one of the biggest challenges is psychological: we should not want to keep the brick picture at all costs. Build with real bricks when you still can, but don't sit around recreating it with another material.