Bricks are the oldest pre-fabricated building components.
Sun-dried bricks were made in Egypt.
The earliest fired bricks were made about 4000 BC in Mesopotamia.
The art of brick making was spread by the Romans throughout Europe.
In the mid-18th Century and at the behest of Empress Maria Theresa the Imperial and royal brickyards at Wienerberg (in Vienna, Austria) were founded.
In 1859 the ring oven (Hoffmann Kiln) was invented and patented by the German inventor and architect Friedrich Eduard Hoffmann. This invention made it ??possible to fire bricks continuously.
In 1865 the first Hoffmann Kiln was built in Vienna, and shortly thereafter the brickyards at Wienerberg were the largest in the world. At that time, about 10,000 workers were employed and the annual production was several million bricks.
The old Austrian brick size is 29x14x6, 5cm (11 7/16” x 5 ½” x 2 9/16”) and is based on the Viennese fathoms (Ger. Klafter), which was the official standard measure from the end of the 18th Century and until the introduction of the metric system in 1872.
These historic bricks from the period of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are our basic raw material from which we produce wall coverings and flooring tiles.
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