A ceiling is the overhead surface or surfaces over a area, and the underside of a floor or a roof. Ceilings are generally used to cover floor and roof construction. They have been favoured places for decorating from the earliest eras: either by coating the plain surface, by bringing out the structural members of roof or floor, or in treating it as a field for an overall pattern of relief.

Little is proved of ancient Greek ceilings, but Roman ceilings were intricate with relief and painting, as is seen within the vault soffits of Pompeian baths. In the Gothic period, the widespread trend to utilize structural elements decoratively then came to the design of the beamed ceiling, in which large cross-girders support smaller floor beams at right angles to them, beams and girders being strongly chamfered and molded and often painted in attractive colours.

In the Renaissance, ceiling design was developed to its highest point of uniqueness and difference. Three forms were furthered. 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 created, with their edges ornately carved and the field of each coffer flourished with a rosette. The second type consisted of ceilings largely or in parts vaulted, often 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 great illustration of this. In the Baroque period, mystical figures in heavy relief, scrolls, cartouches, and garlands were also used to decorate ceilings of this type. The Pitti Palace in Florence and many French ceilings in the Louis XIV style show this. In the third form, which was markedly found of Venice, the ceiling became a single framed painting, as seen in the Doges’ Palace.

In modern architecture ceilings may be divided into two major types — the suspended (or hung) ceiling and the exposed ceiling. With ceilings hung at some distance under the structural members, some architects have decided 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 have a lightweight metal grid suspended from the structure by wires or rods to hold up plasterboard sheets or acoustical tiles.

Other architects, desiring the aesthetic of the exposed structural system, take enjoyment in revealing the mechanical and electrical equipment. In response to this trend, many structural systems have been put in place that have an expressive power in themselves and make for admirable ceilings.

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