Coffer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coffering on the ceiling of the Pantheon, Rome

A coffer (plural: coffering) in architecture, is a sunken panel in the shape of a square, rectangle, or octagon that serves as a structural or decorative device in a ceiling or vault.^[1] These sunken panels may also be referred to as coffered ceilings, caissons, or, fancifully, lacunaria.^[2]

Experimentation with the possible shapes of coffering, which solve problems of mathematical tiling, or tesselation, were a feature of 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.

1 Notes
2 See also
3 Footnotes
4 External links

^ Enframing devices on walls are simply panels.
^ coffer. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Retrieved on 2007-10-17.

Gilded coffering on a barrel vault of the apsis in Nazaré, Portugal	Giuliano da Sangallo's flat caisson ceiling, Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome	Problems arising where vaults intersect are not always successfully solved (Commerce Court, Toronto)	Painted coffering in octagons and squares at Fontainebleau
Coffered ceiling with 39 painted panels in Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy	15th-century flat coffered ceiling, Duomo of Pisa	Inside Pisa's Duomo	Neoclassical coffered dome of James Wyatt's Pantheon, London