Abstract This paper aims at gaining insight in the various elements and compositions of walls with facing bricks built in the 19th century in Belgium to understand the renovation potential and challenges, with the goal of safeguarding brick architecture. The first step outlines the evolution of building facing brick walls by tracing the technical, territorial, and cultural changes. Timeframes are identified and presented alongside pictures of facades and facade details of reference buildings, using the housing stock in the city centre of Antwerp as an example. In a second step, technical changes and material properties of bricks and mortars will be investigated using literature sources. These insights will offer practical knowledge to recognize and preserve historic characteristics and a starting pointing to predict potential risks of internal insulation.