Ceilings: History and Purpose
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A ceiling is the overhead surface or surfaces above a space, and the underside of a floor or a roof. Ceilings are widely placed to cover floor and roof construction. They have been special areas for decoration from the earliest periods: either in coating the flat surface, by emphasizing the structural members of roof or floor, or by treating it as an area for an overall pattern of relief.
Little more than guesswork is known of ancient Greek ceilings, but Roman ceilings were designed richly with relief and painting, as is shown within the vault soffits of Pompeian baths. During the Gothic period, the common design to utilize structural parts decoratively then adapted to the development of the beamed ceiling, for which huge cross-girders support smaller floor beams at right angles to them, beams and girders being richly chamfered and molded and commonly painted in attractive colours.
During the Renaissance, ceiling design was developed to its highest peak of uniqueness and difference. Three options were further developed. The first was the coffered ceiling, in the delicate design of which the Italian Renaissance architects far emulated their Roman prototypes. Circular, square, octagonal, and L-shaped coffers were designed, with their edges richly carved and the field of every coffer decorated with a rosette. The second type consisted of ceilings fully or in parts vaulted, often with arched intersections, with painted bands bringing out the architectural design and with pictures covering the remainder of the space. The loggia of the Farnesina villa in Rome, decorated by Raphael and Giulio Romano, is a prime illustration of this. During the Baroque period, mystical figures in heavy relief, scrolls, cartouches, and garlands were also utilized to decorate ceilings of this kind. The Pitti Palace in Florence and many French ceilings in the Louis XIV style illustrate this. In the third sort, which was particularly iconic of Venice, the ceiling became one single framed painting, similar to the Doges’ Palace.
In modern day architecture ceilings may be divided into two major types — the suspended (or hung) ceiling and the exposed ceiling. With ceilings hung at some distance below the structural members, some architects have worked to cover great amounts of mechanical and electrical equipment, such as electrical conduits, air-conditioning ducts, water pipes, sewage lines, and lighting fixtures. Most suspended ceilings feature a lightweight metal grid suspended from the structure by wires or rods to hold plasterboard sheets or acoustical tiles.
Other architects, featuring the aesthetic of the exposed structural system, take pleasure in exposing the mechanical and electrical equipment. In response to this design, some structural systems have been put in place that have a deliberately expressive power in themselves and make admirable ceilings.
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