We consider masonry bodies with dissipation of the rate type. Global in time existence and uniqueness of weak solutions for arbitrary loads and initial conditions is established1 this includes the loads for which the masonry structure collapses. "Safe" and "collapse" loads are distinguished by different behaviors of solutions (1 processes) at large times. Three situations can arise according to the properties of the equilibrium problem. (i) The equilibrium problem has a (typically nonunique) solution in the Sobolev space W 112 of displacements1 then each process stabilizes inasmuch as the kinetic energy tends to 0 and the L 2 distance of the displacement from the set of all equilibrium displacements tends to 02 (ii) The equilibrium problem has no solution in W 112 but the infimum of the energy functional on the space of admissible displacements is finite. Then the kinetic energy tends to 0 but the W 112 norm of the displacement tends to 22 This may correspond either to a collapse or to a situation when the process approaches an equilibrium solution in a larger function space. (iii): The infimum of the energy functional on the space of admissible displacements is 322 Then the total energy approaches 32 in any process and the W 111 norm of the displacement tends to 24 the structure collapses.