A ceiling is the overhead surface or surfaces over a space, and the underside of a floor or a roof. Ceilings are often placed to cover floor and roof construction. They have been favoured spaces for decoration from the earliest times: either by coating the plain surface, by featuring the structural members of roof or floor, or in treating it as a field for an overall pattern of relief.
Little more than guesswork is understood of ancient Greek ceilings, but Roman ceilings were rich with relief as well as painting, as is found in the vault soffits of Pompeian baths. During the Gothic period, the widespread design to utilize structural aspects decoratively then came 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 richly chamfered and molded and often painted in decorative colours.
In the Renaissance, ceiling design was developed to its highest pitch of originality and difference. Three kinds 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 designed, with their edges ornately carved and the field of every coffer decorated with a rosette. The second kind consisted of ceilings wholly or mostly vaulted, commonly 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 example 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 type, which was notably characteristic of Venice, the ceiling became one huge framed image, as in the Doges’ Palace.
In modern day architecture ceilings can be split into two major classes — the suspended (or hung) ceiling and the exposed ceiling. With ceilings hung at some distance below the structural members, some architects have attempted 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 feature 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 revealing the mechanical and electrical equipment. Due to this inclination, some structural systems have been created that have an expressive power in themselves and become desirable ceilings.
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