By Sam Hayes

In my last blog post, I encouraged you to explore the hidden secrets of buildings by simply looking up. To continue on this path, I wanted to share a few details of other buildings across UNC’s campus, each harboring its own narrative etched in bricks and mortar. 

Person Hall

You can tell a lot about a building by its brick. If you ever talk to historic preservationists or an architectural historian, you may be surprised to learn how much the conversation focuses on brick. Brick is a powerful tool for building construction that dates back thousands of years, and yet, not every brick is equal. In fact, as we walk around UNC’s campus you will notice hundreds of different types of brick. Sometimes, a single building may have several different types of brick, such as Person Hall across campus from New East. 

If you look closely, you can see the different variations in brick color at Person Hall.

Person Hall exhibits a mosaic of brick varieties, indicating multiple renovations throughout its existence. We can also see sections of the brick that are deteriorating, a direct result of the University sandblasting the building to remove the original stucco. 

A view of Old East. Look at the third floor brick and try and find the different patters compared to the first two floors.

Adjacent to New East stands Old East, a testament to the revelation’s brickwork can unveil. Looking at the third floor of the building, you will notice that the pattern is different than the first two stories. The first two are what’s known as a Flemish bond, where every row has a short brick and a long brick. The third floor transitions to a common bond, which has a row of short bricks, and then several rows of long bricks, and then another row of short bricks. 

To the left of the cutter downspout, you will notice a line in the brick.

This gives us a clue that something has happened to this building, but the telltale sign that there was a change in the building is located at the northern end of the building. Adjacent to one vertical row of windows, you can see a line in the brick to the left of which there is a different brick pattern. Ultimately, the third floor and northern portion of Old East were added at a later point. 

Playmakers Theatre

Our final stop on campus is the Old Playmakers Theatre. One of two National Historic Landmarks on campus, the Old Playmakers Theatre is a neoclassical-style building modeled off of a Greek temple. If you glance up at the columns on the front of the building, you might guess that they are traditional Corinthian columns, a standard column used in neoclassical buildings. But if you look closer, you will realize that they are made to depict corn! 

To “Americanize” the Greek Temple, corn was used in the capital of the column.

This is an excellent place to end our tour, as it proves my point that if you stop, look up, and really take an opportunity to appreciate the buildings around you, you never know what detail you may find.


Sam Hayes is a second-year master’s student in the City and Regional Planning program at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. At UNC-CH, he specializes in housing and community development with an emphasis on how historic preservation can be used as an anti-gentrification tactic in changing communities. Sam loves hiking, reading, and spending time exploring cool historic buildings. When not in Chapel Hill, you will probably find Sam in Hendersonville, NC with his boyfriend Kane, dog Canyon, and cat Lucille.

Featured image courtesy of Sam Hayes