Pointing - Brickwork - Britannica

13/05/2020 Pointing | brickwork | Britannica
Pointing
BRICKWORK
WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

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Pointing, in building maintenance, the technique of repairing mortar joints

between bricks or other masonry elements. When aging mortar joints crack and
disintegrate, the defective mortar is removed by hand or power tool and replaced
with fresh mortar, preferably of the same composition as the original. Often an
entire wall, or even a whole structure, is pointed because defective points cannot
easily be detected, and adjacent joints may also be in need of repair. The mortar is
packed tightly in thin layers and tooled to a smooth, concave, finished surface.
Tuck-pointing is a refinement of pointing, by which sharply defined points are
formed for decorative purposes.
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mortar
Mortar, in technology, material used in building construction to bond brick, stone, tile, or concrete
blocks into a structure. Mortar consists of inert siliceous (sandy) material mixed with cement and
BRITANNICA
water in such proportions that the resulting substance will be sufficiently plastic to enable ready… 
tuckpointing 
Tuckpointing, in building construction, technique of finishing masonry joints with a fine, pointed
ridge of mortar, for decorative purposes, instead of the usual slightly convex finish in ordinary
masonwork. The term is sometimes used for pointing (q.v.) as in masonry repair.…
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Pointing
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Masonry
WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
See Article History
Alternative Title: stonework
Masonry, the art and craft of building and fabricating in stone, clay, brick, or
concrete block. Construction of poured concrete, reinforced or unreinforced, is
often also considered masonry.

masonry
Sandstone block masonry.
Leonard G.
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The art of masonry originated when early man sought to supplement his valuable
but rare natural caves with artificial caves made from piles of stone. Circular stone
huts, partially dug into the ground, dating from prehistoric times have
new site been found
for parents!
in the Aran Islands, Ireland. By the 4th millennium BCE, Egypt had developed an
elaborate stonemasonry technique, culminating in the most extravagant of all

ancient structures, the pyramids.
The choice of masonry materials has always been influenced by the prevailing
geological formations and conditions in a given area. Egyptian temples, for
example, were constructed of limestone, sandstone, alabaster, granite, basalt, and
porphyry quarried from the hills along the Nile River. Another ancient centre of
civilization, the area of western Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates, lacked
stone outcroppings but was rich in clay deposits. As a result, the masonry
structures of the Assyrian and Persian empires were constructed of sun-dried
bricks faced with kiln-burned, sometimes glazed, units.
Inca stonework
Inca stonework lining a street in Cuzco, Peru.
© Ron Gatepain (A Britannica Publishing Partner  )

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Roman Empire: masonry
Learn about the infrastructure of imperial Rome, particularly Roman masonry.
© Open University (A Britannica Publishing Partner  )
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Stone and clay continued to be the primary masonry materials through the Middle
Ages and later. A significant development in masonry construction in ancient
times was the invention of concrete by the Romans. Although well-cut blocks of
stone masonry could be erected without benefit of mortar, the Romans recognized
the value of cement, which they made from pozzolanic tuff, a volcanic ash. Mixed
with water, lime, and stone fragments, the cement was expanded into concrete.
Walls of this concrete, faced with various stone or fired-clay materials, were more
economical and faster to erect than walls made of stone blocks.
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Because it provided more freedom in shaping structures, concrete helped the

Romans develop the arch into one of the great basic construction forms. Prior to
the arch, all builders in stone had been handicapped by the stone’s fundamental
lack of tensile strength—that is, its tendency to break under its own weight when
supported on widely separated piers or walls. The Egyptians had roofed temples
with stone slabs but had been forced to place the supporting columns close
together. The Greeks had used wooden roof beams covered with thin stone; such
beams were subject to weather and fire. The Roman arch avoided tension entirely,
keeping all the masonry in compression, from the keystone to the piers. Stone in
compression has great strength, and the Romans built huge arched bridges and
aqueducts in large numbers. Extending their arch into a tunnel, they invented the
barrel vault, with which they successfully roofed such buildings as the Temple of
Venus in Rome. Several arches intersecting at a common keystone could be used
to form a dome, such as that of the Pantheon in Rome. Two intersecting barrel
vaults gave rise to the groin vault, which was used in some of the great Roman
public baths.
The Roman arch underwent a significant modification in the Middle Ages in the
evolution of the pointed arch, which provided a strong skeleton resting on well-
spaced piers. The massive, rigid masonry structures of the Romans gave way to
soaring vaults supported by external flying buttresses (external bracing). The use
of smaller-sized stones and thick mortar joints created an elastic, slender structure
that stressed the masonry to its fullest. The bearing of unit upon unit required the
use of mortar to distribute the contact stresses.
With the advent of Gothic forms, masonry construction in a historic sense had
solved the problem of spanning space entirely by material in compression, the only
design formula suitable to stone. With the advent of the truss in the 16th century,
the rise of scientific structural analysis in the 17th century, and the development of
high-tensile resistant materials (steel and reinforced concrete) in the 19th century,
the importance of masonry as a practical material for spanning space declined. It
owes its revival largely to the invention of portland cement, the principal
ingredient of concrete, which in the 20th century returned unit masonry to its
essentially pre-Roman role of forming vertical wall enclosures, partitions, and
facings.
Masonry construction begins with extractive materials, such as clay, sand, gravel,
and stone, usually mined from surface pits or quarries. The most widely used rocks
are granite (igneous), limestone and sandstone (sedimentary), and marble
(metamorphic). In addition to rocks, clays of varying types are manufactured into
bricks and tiles. Concrete blocks are fabricated from cement, sand, aggregate, and
water.
For the shaping and dressing of stone a great variety of tools can be used. These
range from such hand-held tools as hammers, mallets, chisels, and gouges to
machines including frame and circular saws, molding and surfacing machines, and
lathes. There are also various appliances for handling stone at the building site,
ranging from different forms of light hand tackle to machine-driven cranes.
Many architects value masonry for its colour, scale, texture, pattern, and look of
permanence. In addition to its aesthetic appeal, masonry has a number of other
desirable properties, such as its value in controlling sound, resisting fire, and
insulating against daily fluctuations in temperature.
Chicago: Glessner House

Masonry facade of the Glessner House, Chicago.
© Chicago Architecture Foundation (A Britannica Publishing Partner  )
Beginning with 20th-century housing, masonry was frequently used over wood-
stud construction. Cavity walls, highly resistant to moisture, were often built of
two vertical layers of masonry separated by a layer of insulating material. Some
foundations were built of concrete blocks, and many building codes required the
use of masonry in fire walls.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Robert Lewis, Assistant Editor.
LEARN MORE in these related Britannica articles:
Western architecture: Construction
masonry or of concrete (faced or unfaced). There are several examples of early stone walling
without courses (continuous layers), especially in towns such as Norba and Praeneste. Most of the
stone walls existing, however, were built of fairly large squared blocks laid in regular courses…
construction: Primitive building: the Stone Age
…they were the beginning of masonry construction.…
construction: Manufactured building materials
…of elaborately shaped and stamped masonry units. Periodically fired beehive kilns (stoked by
coke) continued to be used, but the continuous tunnel kiln, through which bricks were moved
slowly on a conveyor belt, had appeared by the end of the century. The new methods considerab…
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Quoin
Pointing
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Vermiculated work


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13/05/2020 Pointing | brickwork | Britannica

WRITTEN BY: The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Pointing, in building maintenance, the technique of repairing mortar joints

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elaborate stonemasonry technique, culminating in the most extravagant of all

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Because it provided more freedom in shaping structures, concrete helped the

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Chicago: Glessner House

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Western architecture: Construction

construction: Primitive building: the Stone Age

…they were the beginning of masonry construction.…

construction: Manufactured building materials

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