Ceilings: History and Purpose

A ceiling is the overhead surface or surfaces above a space, and the underside of a floor or a roof. Ceilings are often utilized to hide floor and roof construction. They have been favoured points for decoration from the earliest eras: either by painting the plain surface, by emphasizing the structural members of roof or floor, or by dedicating it as a field for an overall pattern of relief.

Only a little is understood of ancient Greek ceilings, but Roman ceilings were designed richly with relief as well as painting, as is seen by the vault soffits of Pompeian baths. In the Gothic period, the normal theme was to utilize structural parts decoratively then came to the design of the beamed ceiling, in which huge cross-girders support smaller floor beams at right angles to them, beams and girders being strongly chamfered and molded and generally painted in attractive colours.

During the Renaissance, ceiling design was evolved to its highest point of originality and difference. Three forms 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 intricately carved and the field of each coffer marked with a rosette. The second kind consisted of ceilings wholly or in parts vaulted, usually with arched intersections, with painted bands foregrounding 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 good demonstration of this. During the Baroque period, amazing figures in heavy relief, scrolls, cartouches, and garlands were also brought in to decorate ceilings of this kind. The Pitti Palace in Florence and many French ceilings in the Louis XIV style show this. In the third type, which was particularly characteristic of Venice, the ceiling became a large framed painting, similar to the Doges’ Palace.

In modern architecture ceilings can 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 sought to hide 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 use a lightweight metal grid suspended from the structure by wires or rods to support plasterboard sheets or acoustical tiles.

Other architects, emphasizing the aesthetic of the exposed structural system, take enjoyment in exposing the mechanical and electrical equipment. Because of this trend, some structural systems have been created that have a deliberately expressive power in themselves and become popular ceilings.

For ceiling cleaning Brisbane contact Toxicvac today. We will clean ceilings and clean roofspaces to remove rubbish, old insulation and dirt.