Bricklayer

Bricklayer in Paoua, Central African Republic

A bricklayer, who may also be called a mason, is a craftsman who lays bricks to construct brickwork. The term mason also applies to one who lays any combination of stones, cinder blocks, and bricks in construction of building walls and other works. The terms also refer to personnel who use blocks to construct blockwork walls and other forms of masonry.^[1] In British and Australian English, a bricklayer is colloquially known as a "brickie".^[2] A stone mason is a different specialist who cuts and shapes stones.

The training of a trade in European cultures has been a formal tradition for many centuries. A craftsman typically begins in an apprenticeship, working for and learning from a master craftsman, and after a number of years is released from his master's service to become a journeyman. After a journeyman has proven himself to his trade's guild (most guilds are now known by different names), he may settle down as a master craftsman and work for himself, eventually taking on his own apprentices.

Required training

Bricklaying and masonry is an ancient profession that even centuries later required modern training. Masons must attend trade school and/or serve apprenticeships requiring they demonstrate they know how to protect home from humidity or water ingress, know about thermal insulation, and know about the science of construction material and occupational health and safety. While some online sites say they can get you certified in a little as 30 days, most bricklayers today attend vocational or technical schools and receive in-depth and thorough training.

It’s likely that as long as man seeks shelter from the elements, there will be work for these skilled professionals. While steel and glass make up the modern skyscraper, it’s hard to imagine a world where the work of a mason isn’t held in high demand and esteem.^[3]

In fiction

The wounded bricklayer large tapestry cartoon by Francisco de Goya

• Italian-American author John Fante featured hod carriers, bricklayers, and stonemasons prominently in several novels and short stories. This was due to the autobiographical nature of much of Fante's writing; his father, Nick, was an Italian-born bricklayer descended from — at least in Fante's fictions — a long line of Italian artisan bricklayers and stonemasons. Fante also spent a significant portion of his youth apprenticed to his father.
• In Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, the title character, a Gulag prisoner, worked as a bricklayer.

See also

• Brick hod
• Construction
• Construction worker
• Guild
• Stonemasonry

Guild clothing of the German bricklayers

• Picture of an Ehrbarkeit
• Traditional belt-buckle of a bricklayer (it reads: Extol the bricklayer's art).
• The buckle is worn on a belt very much like this (this is a belt of a roofer)
• Bricklayer trousers
• Traditional bricklayer waistcoat (most times this is not white, but rather grey)

Notes

1. Richard T. Kreh (2003). Masonry Skills. Thomson Delmar Learning. ISBN 0-7668-5936-3.
2. http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/bricklayer
3. http://www.waltersm.com/blog/34-the-history-of-masonry

External links