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 commonly placed to cover floor and roof construction. They have been particular spaces for decoration from the earliest eras: either in coating the flat surface, by emphasizing the structural members of roof or floor, or in commandeering it as a space for an allover pattern of relief.
Only a little is understood of ancient Greek ceilings, but Roman ceilings were richly designed with relief as well as painting, as is seen within the vault soffits of Pompeian baths. During the Gothic period, the widespread design to use structural areas decoratively then came to the development of the beamed ceiling, for which large cross-girders support smaller floor beams at right angles to them, beams and girders being thickly chamfered and molded and generally painted in bright colours.
In the Renaissance, ceiling design was progressed to its highest tip of individuality and differentiation. Three forms were elaborated. The first was the coffered ceiling, in the delicate design of which the Italian Renaissance architects far exceeded their Roman prototypes. Circular, square, octagonal, and L-shaped coffers were created, with their edges richly carved and the field of every coffer flourished with a rosette. The second kind consisted of ceilings fully or in parts vaulted, usually with arched intersections, with painted bands showcasing the architectural design and with pictures filling the remainder of the area. The loggia of the Farnesina villa in Rome, decorated by Raphael and Giulio Romano, is a prime demonstration of this. In 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 illustrate this. In the third type, which was particularly found of Venice, the ceiling became one single framed painting, as in the Doges’ Palace.
In contemporary architecture ceilings may be divided into two major varieties — the suspended (or hung) ceiling and the exposed ceiling. With ceilings hung at some distance below the structural members, some architects have sought to cover large amounts of mechanical and electrical equipment, such as electrical conduits, air-conditioning ducts, water pipes, sewage lines, and lighting fixtures. Most suspended ceilings have a lightweight metal grid suspended from the structure by wires or rods to support plasterboard sheets or acoustical tiles.
Other architects, desiring the aesthetic of the exposed structural system, delight in exposing the mechanical and electrical equipment. From this inclination, some structural systems have been put in place that have a deliberate power in themselves and make desirable ceilings.
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