Antique Collecting Magazine - December 2008 / January 2009 Extract


ANTIQUE COLLECTING The Journal of the Antique Collectors' Club

Extract from the December 2008 / January 2009 Magazine

	THE ARCHITECT'S TOY by Constance King

In the late 19th century, European and American children were as familiar with German architecture as that of their own countries. In almost every toy cupboard, brightly coloured boxes displayed prints in Nuremberg style, with bridges, towers, gatehouses and churches all made of pink, cream and slate coloured stones, reflecting the tonal effect of the city of toy sellers. Dr Richter's Art Department in Rudolstadt, Thuringia, marketed a series of designs for buildings that carried a child from simple bridges to the most complex castles with turrets and battlements which required consider-able skill to erect. Today, some of the keenest collectors of these heavy 'stone' bricks are engineers and archi-tects, who can appreciate the skill and ingenuity of the manufacturer's plans and designs. The founder of the Bauhaus, Walther Gropius, is known to have discovered his passion for architecture through his Anker (Anchor) Stone Building set and is said to have used the bricks in his Bauhaus lectures. We should not be too sur-prised, as the system was originally devised by an architect. A plan book with the original paper ruler While individual boxes can still be acquired for under Ł50, several would be needed to construct an im-pressive building. Richer Victorian and Edwardian families often purchased the expensive, large and heavy Richter 'chests' with layers of assorted bricks that still command good prices from the most passion-ate enthusiasts. The first Anchor Stone Building Club was formed in 1913 and there are still collectors' groups who construct complex models. The Anchor bricks seem to have appeared first in 1875. An 1887 advertisement described the bricks as 'Royal Playthings. Toymakers to their Majesties the Empress of Austria and the Kings of Italy, Portugal Bavaria etc. Anchor Stone Building Boxes. As supplied to the little Princes and Princesses of the Royal and Imperial Nurseries of Europe.' At this time, the most expensive chests cost 64 shillings. From the first, the intention was to make children think constructively when playing. Education through play had been advo-cated by Friedrich Froebel in the mid-19th century and there is a tradition that he was originally involved in the design. Curiously, there is little mention of building bricks in toymakers' catalogues before the 1860s, though simple sets of wooden bricks are sometimes found with hand-written inscriptions, dating them to the period. The contents are often disappointing, with just one or two arched forms and a large number of rectangular and square pieces. It seems likely that it was sets of this type that were first made by Richter. Toy designers in the mid-19th century would have been aware of the surge of interest in brick and tiles as building materials, with William Butterfield's All Saints Margaret Street, designed in 1850 and Keble College, Oxford being the culmination of Brick Gothic in England. Across Europe and America, designers were searching for a material that was progressive and represented the technical and manufacturing improvements of the time. The finest architectural bricks were coloured throughout, so the patterns on the buildings would never fade. Once the public began to appreciate its beauty, in industrial settings as well as churches and municipal structures, the aesthetic and artistic use of polychrome brick became a virtual cult, as stucco and heavy stone were abandoned in favour of the exciting possibilities of these bricks.