The Modern Gaze

That’s the interior of a saloon in Michigan. Those are (most likely) replica pendant lamps, a restored and painted tin ceiling, restored or replica wood window surrounds, and the exposed interior face of the brick wall. One of these things is not like the other: the more or less 1900 feel to the place is reinforced by the lamps, the ceiling, and the window casing. But the original had plaster on the inside face of the brick, and the people who built and occupied the building 120 years ago would have been puzzled, if not repulsed, by our fashion of having interior exposed brick in otherwise finished spaces.

I don’t know why or how exposed brick became a fashion. I’m personally okay with it, but I find it jarring when, as here, the rest of the original interior is intact or restored. If the space were finished in a modern style, the exposed brick would not bother me (aesthetically) at all. Why the aesthetic qualification? Because it turns out that plaster has a functional role: it serves as a vapor barrier, greatly slowing or stopping water vapor transmission through the wall in a way that the more porous brick does not. In other words, exposing the interior face of the brick by removing the plaster degrades the thermal performance of the wall (a modern concern when stated in that manner) in addition to changing the aesthetic from original to contemporary.