Flemish Bond

I learned it’s a subject tourists find interesting

Built in 1787, the Morris House Hotel at 225 S. 8th Street, Philadelphia, proudly displays its Flemish Bond brickwork. The hotel is a National Historic Landmark. Photo by Jim Murphy, author of “Real Philly History, Real Fast.”

Because there’s so much beautiful brickwork in Philadelphia, I like to point out to tourists that not all brick homes here look alike.

They’re usually amazed … and fascinated!

For example, some of Philly’s most important and lavish homes and buildings used a technique called Flemish Bond.

These include Carpenters’ Hall, 320 Chestnut Street, and the reconstructed Graff House where Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. It’s at 7th and Market Street.

You’ll also see Flemish Bond brickwork at the Kosciuszko House at 3rd and Pine Street, and at the Free Quaker Meeting House, 5th and Arch Street. And at many other important buildings.

When I tell tourists about Flemish Bond, they seem to really appreciate the info and start looking more closely at our many brick buildings.

With a Flemish Bond style, the bricklayer went to extra time and expense to create the structure’s exterior.

Flemish Bond alternates
“stretchers” and “headers”

Rather than using all stretchers — or the longer side of bricks — with Flemish Bond, the bricklayer alternates them with headers — or the short side of the brick.

The result is a beautiful, rich-looking pattern, made more so when the headers are blackened and glazed … as they usually are in Philadelphia.

In Virginia and Maryland, says Calder Loth, senior architectural historian for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, oak firing resulted in a clear blue-gray glaze there. Personally, I prefer Philly’s black glaze for its powerful contrast.

Interesting Oddities:

William Penn was lucky. He established his city near a huge clay deposit very close to the surface. Even after two centuries of mining, that deposit still produced more than 200 million high-quality bricks a year as late as 1900. Those stats come from Tamara Gaskell and Sarah K. Filik in The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia.
“The best quality brick clay was in the ‘Neck,’ between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers.”
After several large fires, Philadelphia outlawed the construction of wood frame buildings within the city limits by 1796, says Steve Sitarski, former chief of interpretation at Independence National Historical Park. By then, 80% of the city’s homes were already brick.
In 1810, some 600 men and boys were involved in brickmaking, just in Philadelphia.
After about 1850, Philadephia’s pressed brick was preferred for several key reasons: its quality, strength, and rich red color.
Philadelphia’s City Hall, thought to be the world’s largest all-masonry load-bearing building, is made of 88 million bricks.
No one knows why the style became known as Flemish Bond. It appeared on some late medieval buildings in northern and central Europe, especially in Poland, says Virginia historian Calder Loth. And an early version appeared on Munich’s Frauenkirche 1468–88. But how and why it spread to England around 1800 is unknown.

Should it be Huguenot Bond?

Philadelphia historian Elizabeth (Libby) Browne believes the term should be Huguenot Bond, not Flemish Bond. She makes a strong argument, but I don’t think she’ll change many people’s minds.

Evidently, the Dutch House (aka the Kew Palace), built in London in 1631, was the first prominent location in England to use this style. By 1650, it became the style of “choice for architecturally refined buildings, particularly for their facades,” says Calder Loth.

You certainly still see a lot of it in Philadelphia.

Some Sources:

https://ecajmer.ac.in/facultylogin/announcements/upload/CACED%20Lab%203rd%20sem%20Lecture_Experiment%201.pdf

https://housing.com/news/flemish-bond/

https://philachaptersah.org/index.php/2020/10/21/bond-flemish-or-huguenot-bond

https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/brickmaking-and-brickmakers/

https://preserveoldswedes.org/2015/02/if-the-walls-could-talk/

https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/PA-02-PH19

https://thearchitectureprofessor.com/2020/06/08/chapter-5-philadelphia-red-brick-the-1876-worlds-fair-and-frank-furness/

https://www.classicist.org/articles/flemish-bond-a-hallmark-of-traditional-architecture/

https://www.colonialarchitectureproject.org/index?/tags/143-flemish_bond_brickwork/start-200

https://www.design.upenn.edu/historic-preservation/events/feats-clay-philadelphia-brick-and-terra-cotta