A third-generation brickmaker with an eye for geology and an appetite for experimentation is turning hand-pressed clay bricks into works of art.
Words Luke Slattery
Photography Martina Gemmola
WHEN Jack Krause’s war ended in 1945, he returned from the lush highlands of Papua New Guinea to the dry plains of Stawell, north-west of Melbourne. The Wimmera town had grown rich from alluvial gold and it was to the earth itself – the iron-rich clay beneath his feet – that Jack now turned for a living.
Eighty years later his grandson, Klynton, leads Krause Bricks, a thriving Australian family company blending craft traditions and innovation, whose bricks are sought out by the nation’s premier architects and, increasingly, sold around the world.
