“Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness.”
Frank Gehry
Ceilings in Indian Architecture
Haven’t most of us walked into a monument, a heritage building, a period landmark, and admired its grand interiors? I feel the cherry topping of these interiors are its ceilings! Let me take you through some stunning ceilings I have shot in my short stint as a blogger.
A simple definition of a ceiling (don’t wonder – there is one) is, ‘the overhead surface covering a room or the underside of a floor’. They are the canvas for renowned paintings or architectural structures. The entire Renaissance period is famous for the artistic expressions of the ceilings. Almost every artist worth his salt has used the ceiling to showcase his mastery.
Paintings and murals make the most interesting ceilings. From the Gothic period onwards, the structural elements became decorative. Roman and Islamic architecture extended this practice to embellish the ceilings grandly that we see even today.
Types of Ceilings
Ceiling designs are of three types: Coffered, Vaulted, and a Photo Frame. The coffered ceiling has many layers of beams with rich carvings decorated with floral designs. It could be circular, square, octagonal or L-shaped.
Vaulted ceilings have arched intersections with painted bands and imagery filling up the interiors. French architecture incorporates such ceilings. The vaulted ceilings also appear in the Indo-Saracenic architecture. Rich decorations in plaster mouldings make the design, so do false ceilings.
The photo-frame ceiling is a large picture bordered with some architectural features.
Ceilings in Islamic Architecture
The interiors of domes, the mainstay of Islamic architecture, make for spectacular ceilings. This circular dome sits on a square base transitioning through a wedge (squinch) or a spherical triangle (pendentive).
Another sculptural composition is the vault adorned by a patterned aesthetic, Muqarna. Surrounded by tiles, this unique ornamentation appears like a honeycomb or a bunch of stalactites.
Without further ado, here is a showcase of some simple, elaborate and hard-to-find ceilings I got to capture.
Spread the love , comment and share if you have also spent time craning your neck to catch these stunning visuals.
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