Presenting a collection of St. Louis bricks, sidewalk markers, and the Fleur-de-lis as architectural detail on and in city buildings, brick collecting, urban exploration, and my life by Christian Herman. Reporting from Tower Grove South in St. Louis, MO
6/22/14
Homage to Spike Japan
Wake up I wait for your heart.
I thought of pachi guy and his spike when I saw the below. But unless you've read the blog, Spike Japan in its thrilling entirety well...it's sort of like watching the movie Naked Lunch without having read the book.
You just aren't going to get it.
Made by Hand
These bricks were formed and fired by hand then loaded onto carts pulled by horses. This house was made by hand, the bricks rubbed by hand to create the wedges used below. The beautiful mortar is going soft.
Urns & Black Brick - Clifton Heights
I'm always flummoxed by the neoclassical urns atop buildings in St. Louis.
Elusive black brick used here as a design element.
6/18/14
Red Glazed Brick & Mortar
This is my first spotting of the elusive red glazed brick. It's has a deep berry color. We've all seen stained rose color mortar (right?) but this is a red mortar. It was a very exciting morning.
The bottom row of these glazed bricks shows the surface has popped off. What's beneath was fired differently and will crumble quickly.
Door Fence
Many years ago I admired a gorgeous collection of doors in Midtown/CWE that someone had used to make a fence. It was about 75 feet long. While I love the reuse to discarded doors I've deep sorrow that these quarter sawn oak doors weren't appreciated in their original use. Better here than a landfill.
6/16/14
Challenging Air
At dawn we're up, on bikes, and flowing.
Please consider the gorgeous Spike Japan Blog. Pachiguy has harvested my breath http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/spike-hokkaido-2/muroran-the-town-that-time-forgot/
Props to Christopher Thiemet for naming the bricks shown below snowflake. If you're a long time reader you may recall I give name to bricks patterns.
;
6/10/14
I get around
I'm up before dawn and am riding by 7 A.M.
No commentary. Way too busy for all that.
The blog you should be reading is called Spike Japan:
http://spikejapan.wordpress.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)