Coffer
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.[1] 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"),[2] 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
early Renaissance.[6] 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.[7] 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.
Asian architecture
In ancient Chinese wooden architecture, coffering is known as zaojing (Chinese: 藻井; pinyin: zǎojǐng).[8]
Gallery
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Coffered ceiling of the Sala dell'Udienza, in the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence
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Chapelle Expiatoire, Paris
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Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
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Coffered ceilings ofMir Castle, Belarus
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Chancel ceiling, Church of the Good Shepherd (Rosemont, Pennsylvania)
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Coffered ceiling, Stock Exchange Pallace, Zagreb
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Coffered ceiling typical of stations on the Washington Metro (Washington, DC)
See also
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Coffered ceilings.
- Dome
- Dropped ceiling
- Coveceiling
- Beam ceiling
- Muqarnas
Footnotes
- ^
Ching, Francis D.K. (1995). A Visual Dictionary of Architecture. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 30. ISBN 0-471-28451-3.
- ^ 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).
- ISBN 978-0801492341)
- ^ Roman wooden coffered ceilings are discussed in Roger Bradley Ulrich, Roman Woodworking, ch. "Roofing and ceilings" (Yale University Press) 2007.
- ^ Illustrated in Ulrich, fig 8.27.
- ^ "coffer". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 2007-10-17.
- ^ Hooper, John (2012-07-23). "House of the Telephus Relief: raising the roof on Roman real estate". The Guardian. Retrieved 2015-01-16.
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
- ISBN 978-0-471-26892-5.
External links
Look up coffer in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.