One of the things that gets me down about STL, especially in the winter, is the relentlessness of the red brick and ruddy earth tones, unbuffered by the green of trees or painted siding. I got to thinking about glazed brick, and that building in Soulard with the tile soda advertisement, and how brick can be glazed in any number of colors, or tilework can be an exterior design element. Then I did a simple Google search:

https://www.google.com/search?q=glazed+ ... CAkQ_AUoAQ

And I realized that STL could have a unique architecture again if using the red brick construction as a backdrop, more new construction could utilize more colorful types of ceramic building treatments.

Just a thought.

It's mainly the cost of the brick itself. I believe there's about a 3:1 cost ratio of materials to labor with brick. One twelve foot strip of vinyl is a lotter cheaper than the 36 or so bricks required to cover the same area.

That said, I consider brick the wiser investment over the life of a building.

Bricked have to be cooked at high temperatures which requires a lot of fuel. Therefore they are expensive especially in an era of high fuel costs. The cost is much less for brick facade because the brick is much thinner therefore less to heat.

There might be a coating you could apply that would be similar to glaze in appearance but actual glaze is fired in a kiln when a ceramic is made. All this said I don't see why glazed brick would be anymore expensive to make than regular brick. Other than the fact that the limited appeal mean the economy of scale factor isn't as good.