Yup. I'm from Amsterdam, the Netherlands as an example. A ton of the city and country has been built with brick. But modern construction typically is built with

Yup. I'm from Amsterdam, the Netherlands as an example. A ton of the city and country has been built with brick. But modern construction typically is built with concrete with a thin facade of brick infront. The brick is just cosmetic, and typically pre-fab in large slabs of 20x20 bricks. For old homes that get renovated, it's popular to keep the old brick facade standing, demolish everything behind it, then build it up again. It's rarely functional. Although there are still a lot of old (mostly built between 1400 - 1950) brick buildings that get maintained with proper masonry, all of which is functional.