Masonry Magazine October 1981 Page. 25
American-made Brick Outbids Competition For New U.S. Embassy in Moscow
From all the news reports it is hard to imagine the United States is building a new embassy in Moscow. But Gruzen & Partners and Owings & Merrill, two of the nation's major architectural firms, have designed a 700,000 sq. ft. complex to house the American Embassy currently being constructed in the Russian capital.
To design an embassy and plan the materials to be used is a major feat, and aesthetics which project the image of America are of extreme importance. The complex is being constructed with brick manufactured in the United States. While contemporary in design, a brick with a typical American colonial feeling was felt necessary to project the American image.
The architects, not satisfied with Russian-made brick, investigated brick manufacturers in Finland, Sweden, Hungary and England. Theodore C. Merritt, president of Merritt Sales, flemington, N.J., a company that acts as sales representative of major brick manufacturers in the United States, decided to make a bid to supply the millions of brick needed for the new American Embassy. Construction experts questioned his business savvy. How could Americans compete with Russian brick manufacturers for a major job in Moscow?
Merritt won the bid. How he did it is a story he tells proudly, a story he considers a tribute to American technology and the American free enterprise system. As he puts it:
"Nowhere else but in this country could the technology be developed to manufacture brick in a different, unconventional way making it possible to sell that brick so inexpensively that, even with shipping costs included, the price for brick of superior quality was competitive with that of Russian manufacturers."
Merritt's decision to bid for the Embassy in Moscow was not born of wild fancy. He knew he stood a chance because he knew of a brick-making process that lowers the selling price of brick because it lowers the cost of its production and shipping. He made the bid to supply the equivalent of four million American-sized brick (Russian brick are nearly double the size of American units) for the face of the new Embassy.
The innovative process developed by Merry Companies, Inc. of Augusta, Georgia-involves the use of sawdust both as a component of the brick and a fuel to fire the brick. According to Merritt, the result is a stronger, yet lighter brick that is cheaper to produce (sawdust is less expensive than oil, gas or wood) and cheaper to ship (sawdust weighs less than clay), and completely eliminates oil dependence. Lightweight brick are also available in all colors.
"It may cause another revolution in Russia," Merritt says, only half in jest. "Bricklayers in Russia are mostly women. When they get hold of these lighter brick they may never again want to use conventional Russian brick." In short, the brick now being manufactured in Augusta and bound for Moscow is about 30% lighter than the same-size, conventionally-fired brick.
Using the new sawdust technology, the composition of each brick is 25% sawdust and 75% clay. Once molded to form, the unbaked brick is fed into a tunnel kiln that fires it. Because the brick contains sawdust, less fuel is needed to fire it since, at a certain point, the sawdust ignites and, in effect, the brick fires itself.
Not only is less fuel required for the kiln, but the brick itself is fired more evenly. All-clay brick are fired from the outside in; sawdust-laden brick fire uniformly because the sawdust is equally distributed. Out of the kiln come lighter brick that have been fired uniformly on less fuel
The Embassy brick are colonial in character and are in "Williamsburg" color. They are made to withstand freezing and torrid temperatures better than all-clay brick and far exceed all building code requirements both in this country and in Russia, Merritt says.
"But their beauty-beyond their aesthetic quality-lies in their lightweight," says Merritt. "Reducing the weight of these brick increases their potential tremendously. They can be shipped almost anywhere and still be competitive with standard brick manufactured just a block from the site of construction. And they are far easier to build with-as the female masons in Russia will soon learn."
From where they are manufactured in Augusta, the brick bound for Moscow will travel more than 6,000 miles to the job site. From Augusta they will be shipped to the Port of Savannah, Georgia. There, the brick, loaded into containers, will travel by Russian flagship to Helsinki. At that point, the brick will be put on boxcars and move by train to Moscow. In the final leg of the journey, the brick will be trucked from the Moscow train station to the job site. "The sheer length and logistics of the shipping underscore the wonder of this technology," Merritt says.
The brick will eventually clothe one of the most significant embassy compounds ever designed. The 700,000 sq. ft. complex will contain an eight-story chancery, 135 townhouse/staff residential units, a school/Marines quar-