“Architecture starts when you carefully put two bricks together,” as architect LudwigMies van der Rohe aptly put it. So do bricks – those familiar, often under-appreciated and apparently banal objects – really have enough to offer for an entire exhibition?

Since antiquity, bricks have been a vital building material which – one by one – shape buildings, neighbourhoods and cities, making history tangible. From the walls of Rome to contemporary construction projects, the building brick demonstrates its diverse nature as a material, design element and bearer of cultural significance. Right up to the present day, clay, a natural raw material, is extracted from pits, formed into shapes and fired into bricks. However, industrialization and new ecological challenges have brought big changes in the way these construction elements – from handmade solid bricks to large insulating blocks – are made.