Eastern’s TAB LOCK grid system ceiling, 1966

‘The Ceiling’ was the topic for Mari Hvattum’s panel session at the 9^th biennial conference of the European Architectural History Network EAHN in Aarhus, 17-21 June 2026. Picking up from the AHO ceiling seminars, the ceiling session explored the meaning, making, and materiality of ceilings in 20^th and 21^st-century architecture. Anna Bortolozzi (University of Stockholm) spoke on Gunnar Asplund and Ivar Tengbom’s dreams of recreating the open, Mediterranean sky in the Skandia theatre and the Stockholm concert house. Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen (Yale University) pondered Alvar Aalto’s lost sensorium at Viipuri, looking particularly at the reconstruction of the famous auditorium ceiling. Louise Vanhee (Ghent University) examined US millionaire W.R. Hearst’s ceiling collection, showing how Hearst and his architect Julia Morgan gave primacy to ceilings in the construction of Hearst Castle. Kieran Connolly (University of Newcastle) studied the ambiguous tectonics of the post war system ceiling, while Hugh Campbell (University College Dublin) took us into the 21^st century by comparing the aluminium petal ceiling in Norman Foster’s Bloomberg Headquarters with Herzog & de Meuron’s brand new rammed earth ceiling in the Hortus centre in Basel.

Gunnar Asplund, Skandia Theatre, early 1920s, ArchDes

Together, the papers formed a rich and sustained inquiry into the meaning of the ceiling in Modernism and beyond. Modern architects have often been accused of ignoring the ceiling, replacing its once symbolic realm with a soulless technological apparatus. Yet as the papers in this session showed, the ceiling remains a uniquely poignant element in 20^th-century architecture, continuing to announce the purpose of the room, the dreams and aspirations of the patron, and the spiritual horizon within which the building belongs.