ABSTRACT
Introducing the topic of Ceilings and Dreams, the question of proper ceiling height is reviewed historically, from proportioning systems in the Renaissance, hygiene in the nineteenth century to the “existence minimum” in the twentieth. Evidence suggests that taller ceiling heights elicit broader, more creative thought. If floors are the place of pragmatics, ceilings are the place of dreaming. Iconographic ceiling paintings invite extended reveries.
Dreams are not only the result of good ceilings, they are also historically the source of architectural designs. Prophetic dreams reveal building sites and designs. Designing is understood as a form of dream divination or wish fulfillment. Freud’s “dreamwork” for architects is the interpretation of images (drawings) as possible future buildings.
Three topics are outlined, beginning with Reverie. From French ciel (sky), ceilings are a second heaven that represent the natural sky, projecting human cosmologies overhead. Second, Suspense identifies ceiling with its homophone sealing as a construction – sometimes articulated and sometimes smooth – that since the ancient world has been hung below a spanning structure. Finally, Inversion notes that looking up in designing and living is often mirrored into its reverse in what Hegel called the “topsy-turvy world” (verkehrte Welt).
