Loft
A suspended floor is both a platform or false ceiling suspended from the roof structure and the space that is created between the roof structure and the floor. The mezzanine separates a lower room area horizontally from the attic . Today, false floors are only built into living areas in order to gain additional space, for example as a sleeping balcony. Suspended shelves can only be installed if the room has the appropriate clear height .
Historical use
In the past, a mezzanine in farmhouses served as a bedroom for servants or for storage. It was also used in townhouses until the 19th century. In Germany and France, well-off middle-class families also lived in apartments close to the city center. These apartments offered far fewer opportunities to accommodate the maid necessary for civil status . The unheated attic room as a bed for the maid was the exception. The maid often turned his bed down in the kitchen, bathroom or hallway in the evening. In all major European cities, maids also slept in the loft. These were small spaces that were created by adding an additional ceiling over the pantry, over the bathroom or over the hallway in the high living rooms. One of the most apt descriptions of a loft is given in Theodor Fontane's novel Der Stechlin (1899), which has a maid report:
“There are always [the lofts] in the kitchen, sometimes close to the stove or directly across from it. And now you climb a ladder and if you are tired you can fall down. But mostly it works. And now you open the door and push yourself into the hole, just like in an oven. That's what they call a bed. And I can only tell you: it's better in a hayloft, even if there are mice. And it's worst in summer. It's thirty degrees outside and the stove has been on fire all day; it's like being put on the grill. "
See also
- Schnürboden or the upper stage in the theater.
- Suspended ceiling
Footnotes
- ↑ http://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Haengeboden
- ↑ a b cf. Hans Koepf , Günther Binding : Picture Dictionary of Architecture (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 194). 4th, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-520-19404-X .
- ^ Theodor Fontane : The Stechlin , 1899
