A ceiling is the overhead surface or surfaces over a room, and the underside of a floor or a roof. Ceilings are generally placed to cover floor and roof construction. They have been favourite areas for decoration from the earliest times: either in coating the flat surface, by featuring the structural members of roof or floor, or by commandeering it as a space for an allover pattern of relief.

Not much is proved of ancient Greek ceilings, but Roman ceilings were intricate with relief and painting, as is evidenced by the vault soffits of Pompeian baths. During the Gothic period, the normal design to use structural elements decoratively then adapted to the creation of the beamed ceiling, for which large cross-girders support smaller floor beams at right angles to them, beams and girders being richly chamfered and molded and generally painted in bright colours.

In the Renaissance, ceiling design was developed to its highest point of originality and differentiation. Three options were further 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 abounded, with their edges ornately carved and the field of each coffer marked with a rosette. The second kind consisted of ceilings wholly or in parts vaulted, often 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, 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 showcase this. In the third kind, which was particularly iconic of Venice, the ceiling became one huge framed picture, as in the Doges’ Palace.

In modern architecture ceilings are sometimes separated into two major types — the suspended (or hung) ceiling and the exposed ceiling. With ceilings hung at some distance underneath the structural members, some architects have attempted to hide super amounts of mechanical and electrical equipment, such as electrical conduits, air-conditioning ducts, water pipes, sewage lines, and lighting fixtures. Most suspended ceilings use a lightweight metal grid suspended from the structure by wires or rods to hold plasterboard sheets or acoustical tiles.

Other architects, desiring the aesthetic of the exposed structural system, delight in showing the mechanical and electrical equipment. Because of this trend, some structural systems have been developed that have a deliberately expressive power in themselves and make for desirable ceilings.

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