Ceilings: History and Purpose

A ceiling is the overhead surface or surfaces over a area, and the underside of a floor or a roof. Ceilings are widely placed to cover floor and roof construction. They have been special points for decor from the earliest eras: either by painting the flat surface, by featuring the structural members of roof or floor, or by treating it as a field for an allover pattern of relief.

Little is proved of ancient Greek ceilings, but Roman ceilings were rich with relief as well as painting, as is seen at the vault soffits of Pompeian baths. In the Gothic period, the common design to bring out structural elements decoratively then adapted to the design 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 usually painted in beautiful colours.

During the Renaissance, ceiling design was progressed to its highest point of uniqueness and differentiation. Three types were further developed. The first was the coffered ceiling, in the intricate design of which the Italian Renaissance architects far outdid 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 wholly or mostly vaulted, mostly with arched intersections, with painted bands emphasizing the architectural design and with pictures filling the remainder of the space. The loggia of the Farnesina villa in Rome, decorated by Raphael and Giulio Romano, is a good example of this. During the Baroque period, fantastic figures in heavy relief, scrolls, cartouches, and garlands were also utilized to decorate ceilings of this form. The Pitti Palace in Florence and many French ceilings in the Louis XIV style show this. In the third sort, which was especially found of Venice, the ceiling became one huge framed image, as in the Doges’ Palace.

In modern day architecture ceilings are sometimes divided into two major forms — the suspended (or hung) ceiling and the exposed ceiling. With ceilings hung at some distance underneath the structural members, some architects have sought to conceal 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 support plasterboard sheets or acoustical tiles.

Other architects, featuring the aesthetic of the exposed structural system, take enjoyment in showcasing the mechanical and electrical equipment. In response to this trend, some structural systems have been put in place that have a deliberately expressive power in themselves and become admirable ceilings.

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