“From houses of worship to working class homes and apartment buildings to park field houses, brick built Chicago. And brick enthusiast Will Quam believes Chicago is one of the nation’s best showcases for all that a brick can do.”
“‘I like to say bricks are like brushstrokes or like pixels: the more bricks you have and the more varied colors, it’s like having a huge painting full of all these diverse little brushstrokes, like a Van Gogh’.”
“Chicago’s status as a railroad hub meant that, once brick manufacturing became increasingly industrialized across the country, all sorts of bricks passed through Chicago, allowing it to become a center for brick architecture. ‘To me the real golden age of brick is from about 1905 to 1930, and that’s when you start seeing Chicago pulling in a lot of brick from all around the country, so you get these buildings built in the 1920s that just have incredible brick work, incredible brick design and brick colors all over them’.”