Coffer

{{Short description|Series of sunken panels in a ceiling or vault}}

File:Pantheon, Rome (15235769992).jpg (Rome)]]

File:Residence Ceiling Heads, Wawel Castle, Krakow.jpg (Kraków)]]

A coffer (or coffering) in architecture is a series of sunken panels in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon in a ceiling, soffit or vault.

{{cite book

| last =Ching

| first =Francis D.K.

| title =A Visual Dictionary of Architecture

| publisher =John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

| year =1995

| location =New York

| isbn = 0-471-28451-3

| page =30 }}

A series of these sunken panels was often used as decoration for a ceiling or a vault, also called caissons ("boxes"), or lacunaria ("spaces, openings"),An alternative, in a description of Domitian's audience hall by Statius, noted by Ulrich 2007:156, is laquearia, not a copyist's error, as it appears in Manilius' Astronomica (1.533, quoted by Ulrich). so that a coffered ceiling can be called a lacunar ceiling: the strength of the structure is in the framework of the coffers.

History

The stone coffers of the ancient GreeksAn example is the main hieron at Samothrace, where stone ceiling beams of the pronaos carried a coffered ceiling of marble slabs across a span of about 6.15 m (J.J. Coulton, Ancient Greek Architects at Work: Problems of Structure and Design; Cornell University Press) 1982:147; {{ISBN|978-0801492341}}) and RomansRoman wooden coffered ceilings are discussed in Roger Bradley Ulrich, Roman Woodworking, ch. "Roofing and ceilings" (Yale University Press) 2007. are the earliest surviving examples, but a seventh-century BC Etruscan chamber tomb in the necropolis of San Giuliano, which is cut in soft tufa-like stone reproduces a ceiling with beams and cross-beams lying on them, with flat panels filling the lacunae.Illustrated in Ulrich, fig 8.27. For centuries, it was thought that wooden coffers were first made by crossing the wooden beams of a ceiling in the Loire Valley châteaux of the early Renaissance.{{cite web

|url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024646/coffer

|title=coffer

|publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica Online

|access-date=2007-10-17

}} In 2012, however, archaeologists working under the Packard Humanities Institute at the House of the Telephus in Herculaneum discovered that wooden coffered ceilings were constructed in Roman times.{{cite news |last=Hooper |first=John |url=https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/jul/23/house-telephus-relief-roman |title=House of the Telephus Relief: raising the roof on Roman real estate |work=The Guardian |date=2012-07-23 |access-date=2015-01-16 |quote=Buried by Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago, archaeologists at Herculaneum have excavated and carried out the first-ever full reconstruction of the timber roof of a Roman villa }} Experimentation with the possible shapes in coffering, which solve problems of mathematical tiling, or tessellation, were a feature of Islamic as well as Renaissance architecture. The more complicated problems of diminishing the scale of the individual coffers were presented by the requirements of curved surfaces of vaults and domes.

A prominent example of Roman coffering, employed to lighten the weight of the dome, can be found in the ceiling of the rotunda dome in the Pantheon, Rome.

Coffered ceilings were used in cathedrals starting with St Mark's Basilica and Santa Maria Maggiore. They spread following the reforms of the Council of Trent, as the improved acoustics and opportunity to include statues, apostolic heraldry{{Cite book |last=Freiberg |first=Jack |title=Di Sotto in Su: Soffiti nel Rinascimento a Roma |date=January 2019 |publisher=Rome, Palombi editore |pages=39–60 |language=en |chapter=The Heraldic Ceilings of the Lateran Basilica}} and other religious elements in compositions with versatile shapes was thought to enhance the doctrinal purpose of a cathedral.{{Cite journal |last=Tosini |first=Arianna |date=2022 |title=Coffered ceilings in the churches of Rome, from the 15th to the 20th century |url=https://rivistatema.com/sito/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/d-2-085-TEMA-Vol8-SI-TOSINI.pdf |journal=Technologies Engineering Materials Architecture |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=110 |doi=10.30682/tema08SIi}}

Asian architecture

In ancient Chinese wooden architecture, coffering is known as zaojing ({{zh|c=藻井|p=zǎojǐng}}).{{cite book

| first=Francis D.K.

| last= Ching

| year= 2007

| title= A Global History of Architecture

| url=https://archive.org/details/globalhistoryofa0000chin

| url-access=registration

| publisher=John Wiley and Sons

| location=New York

| isbn= 978-0-471-26892-5

| page= [https://archive.org/details/globalhistoryofa0000chin/page/787 787]|display-authors=etal}}

Gallery

File:7530vik Wawel. Foto Barbara Maliszewska.jpg|Coffered plafond at Wawel Castle, Kraków, Poland

File:Palazzo Vecchio - Sala dell'Udienza - ceilings.jpg|Coffered ceiling of the Sala dell'Udienza, in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence

File:Chapelle Expiatoire 1, Paris 2010.jpg|Chapelle Expiatoire, Paris

File:Ceiling SM Maggiore.jpg|Giuliano da Sangallo's flat caisson ceiling from Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome

File:Coffered ceilings of Mir Castle.jpg|Coffered ceilings of Mir Castle, Belarus

File:Chancel ceiling, Church of the Good Shepherd.jpg|Chancel ceiling, Church of the Good Shepherd (Rosemont, Pennsylvania)

File:Viktor Kovačić - Palača burze u Zagrebu - predvorje (vestibul) - kasetirani svod.jpg|Coffered ceiling, Stock Exchange Pallace, Zagreb

File:L'Enfant Plaza station from north mezzanine, March 2019.jpg|Coffered ceiling typical of stations on the Washington Metro (Washington, DC)

Footnotes

External links

[https://books.google.com/books?id=S6_wENs5rWkC&dq=caisson+cupola&pg=PA45 U.S. National Capitol]

Category:Ceilings

Category:Architectural elements