Calcutta, Nov. 29 :    Calcutta, Nov. 29:  It's back to bricks for Rostock and Calcutta. Architects and restoration activists from Germany are joining hands with local experts to develop a 'red thread' for the conservation and redevelopment of brick buildings in the city. 'Our main aim is to revive brick, the oldest pre-fabricated building material, as the staple fabric for buildings in Calcutta. This is the best-case scenario in this historic city because of the flat land and scarcity of wood and stone,' explains Manfred Gerner, professor for building conservation techniques at the institute for constructive design, University of Erfurt, and founder-chief of the German Centre for Crafts and Preservation of Historic Monuments. According to Gerner: 'Calcutta is one of the best examples of architecture in bricks as also of damage in bricks because of air pollution, humidity and lack of maintenance... A perfect case-study for brick experts.' Gerner was in town on Thursday to prepare the ground for a seminar and practical training workshop on 'Conservation of historic brick buildings', to be held at Max Mueller Bhavan from December 13 to 16, in association with Archaeological Survey of India and Calcutta Municipal Corporation. The specific objectives of the four-day workshop are 'to prepare a checklist of instruments for repair and conservation of brick buildings in Calcutta and to initiate a centre for technical advice' to owners of listed heritage buildings. 'It's actually a story of two red lines,' explains Gerner. 'The German red line, through slides and sketches, will cover the entire spectrum of brick buildings, from the kind of clay used, to the process of burning, the mixing of mortar for the protective plaster, damage evaluation and causes, besides repair and restoration techniques. Our Indian colleagues will present a similar red line for Calcutta.' The seminar-cum-workshop has been conceptualised by Gerner and Manish Chakraborti, secretary, Action Research in Conservation of Heritage, Calcutta. Gerner, 62, who has piloted the high-profile restoration of the Cathedral of Konigsberg in Kaliningrad, will be joined by his German colleagues Sabine Freyburg, Uwe Rodiger and Bernhard Gaul, for the seminar. While Freyburg is a brick expert, Rodiger and Gaul specialise in damage assessment and application techniques, respectively. Architects and town planners, including K.T. Ravindran, A.G. Krishna Menon, Dulal Mukherjee and A.P. Gupta, conservation experts and various agencies will attend. 'This seminar will be the starting point for a fruitful collaboration with Germany in a very important area,' says MMB director Ingrid-Maria Keimel-Metz, who has taken the initiative to build the brick bridge.