The brick factory was built in 1909 by Cav. Uff. Felice Maxia on the outskirts of Quartu on a square-shaped plot of about 10,000 square meters. The architectural and industrial design was entrusted to a Lombard firm that also supervised the work, which was carried out by Quartu workers with local materials: mud bricks (ladiri) and fired bricks. The two large industrial sheds, the machine room and the kiln with adjoining chimney, have arches and pillars with exposed bricks and a peculiar “checkerboard” design in the upper order due to the need for ventilation of the working areas. The clay came from the quarries of Pitz’e Serra. A lime kiln, also built with exposed brick, is also part of the factory. In the span of about 70 years of operation, the kilns changed from the Lanuzzi kiln to the Hoffmann kiln, from coal-fired to fuel oil and electricity, from transporting the clay by horse-drawn wagons to trucks, from handmade brickmaking to the installation of dies, from natural drying to drying in drying sheds. Quartu bricks contributed to the architectural transformation of Quartu, Cagliari and hinterland in the early decades of the twentieth century and to the postwar reconstruction of the capital. From 1958 to 1977 the factory was run by Mariuccina Maxia, Sardinia’s first woman entrepreneur; in this year it ceased operations and shortly afterwards the industrial structures of the Hoffmann kiln and machine room were demolished because they were unsafe, but the two large sheds that housed them were preserved intact. Cultural, recreational and service activities are currently carried out in these.
