In the past, it was possible for the architect in almost all brickworks to “climb onto the roof of the brick” himself in order to give the brick its individual appearance with a shovel of coal. With today’s technology, on the other hand, it is almost impossible to influence the production process manually. Some architects may still be familiar with this type of firing technology, e.g. in a chamber or ring kiln. In the past, the firing master had only the natural materials fire, water and clay at his disposal. With these three elements the first bricks were fired, for the first time in the field (as so-called field firing). This production variant exists until today e.g. in Africa.

However, due to urbanization and the quantities of building materials required, it became necessary to produce ever larger quantities of bricks. This led to the establishment of the first brickworks.

Before Hamburg, for example, could be rebuilt, more than 130 small brickworks were established along the Elbe to produce the required quantities of bricks. 

Tonfachwerk relies on tradition to preserve the venerable craft of the master firer. Founded in 1990, the company is constantly looking for solutions to blend modernity with old urban architecture into a harmonious whole. Tonfachwerk specializes in the restoration of wall and floor ceramics, in particular traditional, hand-molded but also machine-pressed materials in special formats, terracotta decorative elements, but also glazed and unglazed floor ceramics, shaped bricks as well as a wide range of design possibilities in the field of modern urban architecture.

After all, progress has not stopped in traditional brickworks either, so that here, too, architects are presented with unimagined opportunities to realize their ceramic wishes. In this way, the tradition of a venerable craft can be combined with the innovation of modern building materials.

Certainly, a traditional brickyard reaches its limits when it comes to large-format products, which can only be manufactured with the help of high-quality firing technologies. In the field of artistic, individual clay ceramics, on the other hand, an old brickyard is vastly superior to modern ceramic “factories”, both in terms of color and shape, but also in terms of surface texture.
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