This post is brought to you by Ortal.

Modern fireplaces are first and foremost decorative elements—gorgeous architectural details, beautiful centerpieces, conversation openers, symbols of home and hearth. “For a lot of people they are almost like shrines or alters, in that the fireplace will be very special-made of beautiful materials, very carefully detailed,” says architect Marcus Greysteen. 

That wasn’t always so. 

From Useful Appliance to Beautiful Symbol

Once upon a time, the fireplace was a mere appliance, a functional piece of equipment used for cooking meals, heating homes, and even drying clothes during long, frigid winters. To do their job, fireplaces of yesteryear featured large, cavernous recesses surrounded by the barest hint of a mantel.¹

Over the years, hearths became smaller. Fireboxes became taller yet narrower. The fireplace itself moved from the middle of the room, where it had remained for centuries, to the outside wall, where it typically remains today.² 

Aside from those minor tweaks, its function stayed the same for thousands of years. Aesthetics meant little compared to utility. As long as it kept the family warm and well-fed, the fireplace served its purpose. 

That changed in the 18th century with the advent of the cast-iron stove, which usurped the fireplace’s position as both cooking and heating device, rendering it obsolete, at least as an essential domestic appliance. Nevertheless, the fireplace managed to retain its place at the heart of domestic life.³

Transformed, but Not Obsolete

Whether it’s humanity’s attachment to the open flame or the sheer beauty of the hearth, the fireplace has never lost its appeal. By the mid-20th century, most homes had done away with their cumbersome cast-iron stoves in the rush to adopt central heating and air conditioning units. Yet, incredibly, the fireplace never once suffered the same fate. 

Perhaps the greatest challenge to the fireplace’s preeminence came from an unlikely source: the TV. “There was a period of time when the television was becoming the symbolic representation of hearth and home, for most humans,” said says architect and designer Treff Lafleche of LDa Architecture and Interiors. 

In spite of the competition, the fireplace has held its own. According to Lafleche, “Now we’re finding that we’re trying design the location of both of those things simultaneously so that the fireplace is once again sort of occupying this critically important position of center or essence or heart of the house.”

Far from fading into oblivion, the fireplace has become more prominent with each passing decade, gaining in prestige what it lost long ago in sheer usefulness.³ 

The Power of Evolution

The key to the fireplace’s staying power has been its ability to evolve. Rather than discard their fireboxes and hearths along with their other obsolete appliances, homeowners quickly transformed them into central architectural features. 

As style has progressed, so has fireplace design, often in lockstep. Simple brick gave way to elaborate masonry, which gave way to mid-century minimalism, and now, to sleek, three-dimensional modern fireplaces.² 

Fireplace technology also made big strides over the years. The single most important development would undoubtedly be the invention of the chimney. The chimney allowed smoke to rise up (as it naturally does) and vent away from the house, a huge improvement over horizontal venting systems, which tended to let more smoke into the room than they let out. 

Next came gas and electricity. The arrival of prefabricated units brought modern convenience to the table. Now Ortal’s Cool Wall Technology has eliminated the need for clearance zones, allowing homeowners to surround their fireplaces with combustible materials, valuable artwork, and modern electronics—an impossibility a few years ago.

Fireplaces Today

These days, contemporary fireplaces feature a combination of design influences. Visit Ortal’s gallery, and you’ll see island units reminiscent of historic cast-iron stoves; traditional, front-facing fireplaces with stone or brick masonry; and crisp, sleek, modernist designs that build on and advance mid-century motifs. 

You’ll also see fireplaces that have once again assumed their traditional place in the center of the living space. Today, “people want an open flame; they want it in the middle of the house, so that they can gather around it and that it can provide that meaningful symbolism of hearth and home,” says Lafleche. “But they want it done in a way that is sustainable, that it is efficient, it’s easy to use, and it’s safe.”

In other words, architects and designers may have moved in different directions, but they’ve never stopped incorporating the fireplace into their vision of the perfect gathering space. Time has moved on, but the fireplace remains at the center of domestic and social life. 

Browse through Ortal’s modern fireplace collections to keep up with the latest in fireplace design and technology. View the below video to take a peek at some of our units and to hear what other architects and Interior Designers think of Ortal.

1. Old House Online. “The History of the Fireplace.”
2. Fireplaces Magazine. “History of Fireplaces.”
3. The Journal of the American Institute of Architects. “The Heat is On: A Brief History of Fireplace Design.”