Fundamental Concepts of Architecture : The Vocabulary of Spatial Situations

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Within a building, the ceiling substitutes for the sky; outside,

the sky forms a ceiling. We barely notice the sky unless atten-

tion is called towards it by its unusual appearance. Things are

similar with the ceiling. While we are oriented in everyday life

primarily towards walls, and secondly towards the floor, the

ceiling is ignored for the most part unless it is made conspicu-

ous by virtue of unusual height, coloration, or through aper-

tures or other special features. This is also due to the fact that

with ordinary room heights, the ceiling only enters our field

of vision across large distances. In narrowly enclosed outdoor

spaces, it makes little difference whether we stand beneath

ceiling or sky, while a cornice can suggest the presence of an

imaginary ceiling, with a leaf canopy or trellises providing

a certain degree of materialization. In large public squares,

however, the angle of vision is wide enough to encompass the

sky, towards which the squares open up.

The term ceiling is used in principle for a more or less

horizontal terminus that is clearly delimited from the vertical

boundaries of room, i.e. walls and supports. This distinction

is more difficult to make, however, when the surface of the

ceiling approaches the vertical gradually, reaching almost all

the way to the floor, as in the case of cupolas, vaults, and the

freely formed upper termini of rooms.

Even where the ceiling conveys the impression, either di-

rectly or indirectly, of being a > roof, the two are nonetheless

not identical, since a ceiling is the interior of hollow space,

while a roof is perceived as the outside of an architectural

corpus. And where the roof and its construction are left naked

and visible from the interior, the ceiling has a different effect

as an interior cavity than it does in its function as the crown-

ing upper terminus of a building.

While the walls of a room divide, the ceiling instead has

a unifying and articulating function. It provides a complet-

ing upper covering for a room that has already been delim-

ited, measured off, and shaped by its walls. It may also be

regarded, however, as the primary element that satisfies the

Ceiling