Draft talk:Tapestry brick

Missing term: tapestry brick

(was "Missing term")

I just ran across "tapestry brick", used in over 30 articles, but no place to link this to. Searching doesn't result in much, so probably not enough for an article. Maybe a paragraph in Brickwork. MB 05:12, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

User:MB: I forgot about this note from you until just coming across it now. Separately, I recently came across the term again, for Draft:R.T. Frazier House, and I got puzzled what it meant there. I started Draft:Tapestry brick thinking it would be simple at first, but there are at least 3 quite distinct meanings! The most I could find was about simple 2-tone patterns, which did not apply to Frazier House. Finally got to only one source which defines "Tapestry brick is 'a brick having a rough, unscored, textured surface.'" which can make for an interesting looking brick surface when laid in simple running bond a wall is made from it, and seems to be what is meant at Frazier. A different meaning is for slightly complex brickwork (not rough, not two-toned) in Arts & Crafts style that I have seen myself I think in elaborate fireplaces in a Ward Wellington Ward-designed house in Syracuse NY, which I recognize from early 1900s book source showing a number of such designs. I bet that the fireplace I recall, in the basement level but opening out to the back of the house built on a slope in 1913, is exactly one of those designs in the 1909 book. This one is quite aggravating. I just figured it appears 40 times or so already in wikipedia, but I don't see how to make an article out of 3 or more different usages, where no source is aware of more than 1 usage, and there is hardly enough for an article on any single one. I wonder, could you possibly take a look at what I found and look again for sources? You always seem to find some sources that I don't.... --Doncram (talk) 17:27, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

I added some sources to the draft. I am not really seeing three different meaning. T.B is brick with a rough surface (or at least a common term in the early 20th century, we still have rough-faced brick but I've never heard it called T.B. in "modern times"). It doesn't matter what in what pattern it is laid. I saw there was that one source that said it was brick laid in an intricate art/crafts pattern. But that same source pointed to the Fiske fireplace book, which talks all about T.B., which it trademarked. It it showing-off fancy fireplaces built with it's T.B., and they happened to have intricate patterns as well, to make them more interesting/fancy/desirable. But the same fireplaces could have been built with smooth brick in the same fancy patterns. I think T.B. just refers to the not-smooth face and anyone who mixes it up with the pattern is wrong. Although the thesis says "characteristics of the Tapestry Brick phenomenon — panels of pattern-laid brick framed in decorative coursework; flat, sculpted parapets with stone details", but that was written in 2012 - but he was defining a new "style" in Brooklyn and named it "Tapestry Brick" but it clearly refers to more than just the brickwork - it's the whole facade with parapets, stone details, etc. Since the main component is T.B., that's what he choose to call this style of residential building in Brooklyn. I think if we just said T.B was a generic term for rough/scored brick there is still enough for an article about that. MB 20:11, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

User:MB, thanks! Right, for the T.B. defined to be just a single rough-edged brick, it doesn't matter how it is laid, it will always be T.B. I amended my statement above where i used term running bond, when i just meant that as a simple regular wall. That's one definition. I still see at least 2 more definitions. Haven't looked at your sources yet, will return later. Thanks again already. --Doncram (talk) 20:44, 13 September 2022 (UTC)

User:MB, i organized my thoughts a bit better over at Draft:Tapestry brick, and I developed out some of the references in the process. Your source which you labelled "good background" seemed good but maybe too blog-like at first, but my perception of its quality has grown. It is an article in an industry association magazine. I'm more organized with a list of potentially technically different meanings, but I am definitely not committed there on asserting whether there are truly different meanings for the term. You might take a browse there?

However, there really is not very much usage of the term; it might be considered mostly a marketing term for the company that attempted to trademark it. Perhaps better would be to create a new article at Face brick to cover the bigger topic of the "face brick" and the "face brick industry", and to cover the term "tapestry brick" within that. Julie M. Rosen's work (long abstract here) looks great about documenting a serious history, the development of an industry: "The rapid evolution of face brick production processes, terminology, and aesthetics over the course of approximately sixty years (1880-1940) created an ever-growing national face brick industry that was cemented by the 1912 establishment of the American Face Brick Association." That association is a real thing, while there is no Tapestry Brick Association. One publication of theirs is cited in Belt course article: "A Manual of Face Brick Construction" (1920).

References

Doncram, I didn't mention some other things I found that led me to conclude it was more than a marketing term. I saw things that said although it was trademarked, it had become a generic term (think Kleenex). I saw a court transcript of a case about contract/payment that talked about how it was more expensive to lay T.B. than ceramic brick (this building could have been built with Fiske brick but the testimony not about that), and I saw a report about a plant in Canada (Winnipeg maybe) starting to make T.B for that market (it detailed the types of clay used to get the colors) which I don't think had anything do to with Fiske. And the common usage in NRHP docs also contributes to it being a generic term. Agree we should have this term covered. If not in Tapestry brick, then in Face brick, although the latter would be even more work since it is a broader subject. I don't think this should be added to Brickwork - that is just about patterns. MB 14:27, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

And this "Story of Brick..." is a 2021 reprint of a 1926 book now in the public domain (though I don't immediately see how/where to get it in PDF). And there are pattern books for 5-room and 6-room face brick houses. Only spent 2 minutes searching though.

--Doncram (talk) 05:54, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Here are all their publications online. No mention of T.B. in that one, but probably a good source for Face brick. Did not look at the others. MB 14:27, 14 September 2022 (UTC)

Okay, i hear you about the Kleenex point, and that a larger article about Face brick industry might be too much work. I am beginning to get it, what seems to be most commonly meant now by "tapestry brick" and in most usage in NRHP documents, as the rough edged, textured brick, with varying color mixes, that gives a wall a mottled appearance as in this Google Streetview look at 101 W. Landry St., Opelousas, LA, in Opelousas Historic District. --Doncram (talk) 10:16, 15 September 2022 (UTC)