Editor’s Miscellany: Time and Tile

July 19, 2012

By Kyle Hoepner

There have been occasions over the past couple of years when I’ve been certain that modern interior design is finally outgrowing its birth pains. Much like modern architecture, professional interior design (in the English-speaking world, at least) remains greatly influenced by its early twentieth-century founders, such as Elsie de Wolfe. Her style–and the same is true of other seminal tastemakers like Syrie Maugham–was very much a reaction against Victorian and Edwardian looks. And to this day such nineteenth-century looks have never really had a comeback.

But recently there are hints that we’ve traveled far enough down time’s road for Victorian style not to seem so threatening. A full-fledged renaissance may not yet be imminent–what would we call it? Neo-Nineteen?–but hints and traces are surfacing in houses and shelter magazines near you, in the guise of dark woods, heavy velvets, aggressively mixed patterns and Gothic accents.

The living room of designer Elaine Griffin and Michael McGarry’s apartment in an 1890s Harlem brownstone. Photo by Joshua McHugh, from the May 2011 issue of Elle Decor

I’ll think about writing a more extended post on this topic soon–but for the moment there’s one particular Victorian element I’m happy to be seeing more of: encaustic tile.

From the same house in Harlem: a floorcloth (I think)Â in the designer’s home office gives an effect similar to encaustic tile patterns from Victorian times. Photo by Joshua McHugh, from the May 2011 issue of Elle Decor

I love the luscious sense of depth encaustic tiles give–especially when unglazed–both because of the actual, physical properties of their inlaid clay or cement, and also because of their often repetitive, Op-art-ish patterns. They may remind you of parish church floors, or perhaps the â€œdownstairsâ€ spaces in an English country house. Or maybe they recall the foyer of an old brownstone or apartment building you lived in as a student.