Halsam American Brick Build - City Hall

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The thirteenth build is City Hall -- or rather, a city hall.

In some ways, this resembles the tower building. Note that the yellow accents in the back of the building have two functions. They add visual interest, and they also provide support for the roof.



On the whole, this was a pretty simple build. This is a very small City Hall -- but I've been in some townships where this would be all the room the town council would need!

Halsam American Brick Build - Bridge

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The twelfth build is a bridge. This was one of my favorite things to build with this set. The plans call for four pillars spanning the (imaginary) water. But you can make as many as you have bricks to build them, making a much longer footbridge.

The approaches are assembled in halves.

The yellow bricks that form the steps secure the two halves.

The bridge supports are somewhat tricky to build. You have to balance everything on a single column of brick.

Once assembled, it's easy to connect the supports together. And, as I said, with enough bricks, you can build a pretty long bridge.

Halsam American Brick Build - Office Building

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The eleventh build is an office building. Like some of the previous structures, this one required sections to span openings in the floor plan. In this case, the bricks were cantilevered in two directions. The first extended the second story walls across the gaps. 

Two additional rows are added to secure the span. Then bricks are extended out of the second story walls to support the gables. It worked pretty well. The overall structure was quite stable.

The roofs on the second stories use the same offset technique as the tower. The end result is a nice -- if somewhat non-descript office building of the early post-war era. 

Office building (front)

Office building (back)

Halsam American Brick Build - Two Story House with Wing

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The tenth build is a two-story house with a wing. This was one of the more complicated structures to build. You can see in the instructions, the detail for the rear wing gable.

There are two places where bricks need to be cantilevered (photo, right). The gable for the wing roof is in the foreground. The second-story wall is in the back.

I was a little surprised that the instructions didn't have the two spans connected by bricks running across both. But that would mean the second story span would have to start two courses lower.

And that, with the inset of the wing's wall, would have lead to a more complicated structure -- and a weaker one.

The end result is a fairly substantial structure. It does seem a little odd to me that the most imposing door frame is on the wing. What I would think of as the front has a smaller, simpler door, as does the back.

It may be part of the same problem as positioning the spanning bricks. The fancier door is taller, and that could push the window above the front door up two more rows.

And that would make the second story disproportionately tall. 

Two-story house with wing (front).

Two-story house with wing (back).

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Halsam American Bring Build - Two-Story Residence

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The ninth build is a two-story residence -- not to be confused with the two-story house. IThat was a more modest structure. This house features two entrances with brick borders, and a front foyer.

The actual construction was quite simple. The cantilevered arch spanning the foyer isn't a new concept -- it's been part of previous structures. 

The only unusual part of this build was the roof. Several different sizes of roof panels came with the set. None of them are long enough to span the length of the house. The solution is to take two that are the right width and overlap them. You can see where I did so in the photo below. 

Halsam American Brick Build - The Little Theatre

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The ninth build is The Little Theatre. This is another structure that looks like it belongs in a small town. I can image such a theater showing movies in the 1930s, and then falling into disrepair before being rescued in the 1970s for community theater.

The build itself was very simple. The walls just go straight up, with no gaps to span.

There were two unusual features to the theatre, though. The first is the use of offset brick. This left small openings in the upper rows. It's a good concept to remember if you want to build for height. The offset pattern uses less bricks than a solid course, letting you build more courses. 

The second concept was the ornamentation for the flat roof. In this case, it's just the triangle pieces used for roofing turned face-down. Still, they give the appearance of an ornate cornice. And they also help hold the flat roof panels in place.

Halsam American Brick Build - Tower Building

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The eighth build is a tower building. I've seen modest buildings such as this in the older sections of small cities. The instructions were quite clear, but I was puzzled by that white space over the door frame. It might be a panel insert, but I've never found one in any of the Halsam sets I've seen. I simply left it out.

Almost every building in the instruction book offers a different way to use the bricks. For this build, the new concept was offset patterns. As you can see in the photo below, using such a pattern creates a foundation that's only one peg row smaller. It provides a stable base set above an open space.

It was fun to build a structure with a little bit of height to it. 

Halsam American Brick Build - Country Villa

In the mid-1950s Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The seventh build is a country villa. It looks sort of like a weekend home. This build introduced a couple of new concepts.

The first involved the roof over the "entrance hall" (looks more like a foyer to me). The roof consists of two bricks cantilevered over the opening, held in place by a few courses of brick. But to get there, I also had to span the interior doorway of the entrance hall. By studying the instructions carefully, I was able to puzzle out the configuration. A close-up would have been more helpful, though. 

The second new concept involved the chimney. Again, by studying the instructions, I determined that the bricks needed to alternate directions in each rows. This was definitely more stable than simply stacking up a tower of 8-peg bricks and sliding it up to the back of the house. 

The alternation of direction bound interlaced the chimney with the back wall, making it a stable structure that could be extended beyond the roof line. 

All in all a nice little structure. 

Halsam American Brick Build - Monument

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The fifth build is a monument. After World War II, there was a change in the style of public art. Imposing Art Nouveau figures, either real or allegorical, seemed passe. Instead, monuments became abstract in design.

The one shown in the instruction book would have been a fairly typical early 1950s example.

And this build also introduces another important concept. Note the instructions so how the bricks intersect in the middle. By off-setting the bricks, the rows weave together, creating a strong center to the structure. 

I like to think of this as the Memorial to the Unknown Halsam American Brick Architect. 

Halsam American Brick Build - Bungalow

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The fourth build in the instruction book is for a very modern-looking bungalow. Well, an early mid-century modern-looking bungalow, that is.

This was perhaps the simplest structure to build so far. It's basically just a box with windows.

 If there was any new concept introduced, it was that roofs don't have to always be peaked. They can simply lay flat, too.

Halsam American Brick Build - Pavilion

In the mid-1950s' Halsam offered interlocking brick building toys made from pressed wood. I'm assembling each of the models shown in the instruction booklet for their 60/1 and 60/2 building sets. I'm calling it the Halsam American Brick Build.

The third build in the instruction book was for something they labeled a pavilion.

It's kind of an odd structure, with an open back and very house-like front.

Nice place to live -- if you don't mind the draft.

There were two key concepts featured in this structure. The first was how secure the roof supports in the back. If you follow the brick pattern exactly, they're quite stable.

The second is how to make the most of the yellow brick. Note its use above the door frame. And the yellow brick beneath the narrow windows. The yellow brick only comes in the 8-peg size, and yet it appears these are 4-peg bricks. 

How to have a narrow yellow brick.

Again, by following the instructions exactly, you can hide half of the yellow brick in the door frame.

I think this structure would have looked better with different door and window treatments, but only one kind came with the set. On the other hand, the open back of the pavilion gives it more play value -- almost like a dollhouse.