Skilled craftsman laying single skin of bricks in stretcher bond in a decorative pattern for exterior wall of a public building.

This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage.

Bricks are a hard and durable construction material that is manufactured from fired clay and has been used for centuries for many different types of structure like bridges, aqueducts, tunnels and domestic housing. There is evidence of fired brick structures in Mesopotamia and Egypt but the Romans were the first to make extensive use of brickwork technology. Here, bricks form a single-skinned decorative outer wall of a steel framed public building, allowing cheaper building blocks to form the hidden inner wall. Stretcher bond (or running bond) is the most common pattern of laying bricks in modern building because it is a simple method with little waste. Brickwork, like unreinforced concrete, has little tensile strength and relies on everything being kept in compression.