The 18th century Fachwerk or half-timbered warehouse building in Klaipėda, Lithuania Minor, Lithuania. Fachwerk is a construction with a frame of timber, in which spaces between the timbers are filled-in with nonstructural material (for example, bricks). From the 13th century, the Teutonic Order used this technique in building of towns around newly conquered or founded castles in Prussia because of fast construction, where soil was swampy and heavy brick buildings cannot stand there, and for a defence — buildings could easily be burnt in case of an enemy attack to avoid use them against defenders of a castle