Ceilings: History and Purpose
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A ceiling is the overhead surface or surfaces covering a area, and the underside of a floor or a roof. Ceilings are generally placed to conceal floor and roof construction. They have been favourite areas for decorating from the earliest eras: either by painting the plain surface, by featuring the structural members of roof or floor, or by treating it as a field for an allover pattern of relief.
Only a little is known of ancient Greek ceilings, but Roman ceilings were designed richly with relief and painting, as is found within the vault soffits of Pompeian baths. During the Gothic period, the normal theme was to utilize structural aspects decoratively then gave rise to the design of the beamed ceiling, for which sizeable cross-girders support smaller floor beams at right angles to them, beams and girders being thickly chamfered and molded and often painted in decorative colours.
During the Renaissance, ceiling design was progressed to its highest point of individuality and variety. Three types were elaborated. The first was the coffered ceiling, in the intricate design of which the Italian Renaissance architects far emulated their Roman prototypes. Circular, square, octagonal, and L-shaped coffers abounded, with their edges delicately carved and the field of every coffer decorated with a rosette. The second type consisted of ceilings largely or partially vaulted, commonly with arched intersections, with painted bands foregrounding the architectural design and with pictures covering the rest of the area. The loggia of the Farnesina villa in Rome, decorated by Raphael and Giulio Romano, is a prime example of this. In the Baroque period, wondrous figures in heavy relief, scrolls, cartouches, and garlands were also brought in to decorate ceilings of this type. The Pitti Palace in Florence and many French ceilings in the Louis XIV style illustrate this. In the third sort, which was notably iconic of Venice, the ceiling became one large framed painting, as in the Doges’ Palace.
In modern architecture ceilings may be split into two major kinds — the suspended (or hung) ceiling and the exposed ceiling. With ceilings hung at a distance underneath the structural members, some architects have attempted to conceal large amounts of mechanical and electrical equipment, such as electrical conduits, air-conditioning ducts, water pipes, sewage lines, and lighting fixtures. The large part of suspended ceilings feature a lightweight metal grid suspended from the structure by wires or rods to hold up plasterboard sheets or acoustical tiles.
Other architects, desiring the aesthetic of the exposed structural system, delight in showing the mechanical and electrical equipment. From this design, many structural systems have been put in place that have a deliberate power in themselves and make for desirable ceilings.
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