The beams spanned the barrel-vaulted brick ceiling of the Great Hall where Abraham Lincoln would give his famous New York address.

WSJ: Cooper Union's New Building, at 41 Cooper Square | By WSJ Architecture Critic Ada Louis Huxtable

The new Olympic Studios still has a charming vintage feel, retaining many of the original ceiling beams, wooden floors and exposed brick walls.

BBC: Take two for London��s Olympic Studios

Homes with floor-to-ceiling windows and skylights are joining the brick row houses and Victorians that have long lined the city's streets.

WSJ: Washington, D.C.: The New Boomtown

Ms. Thompson also opened up the home's interiors by replacing sections of the building's exterior brick walls with mahogany-framed panels of floor-to-ceiling glass.

WSJ: Luxury Real Estate: A Clear Merger of Equals

At MIT, an auditorium was roofed with a swooping parabolic curve, and the brick walls of a small, round chapel were washed with daylight flowing from a ceiling oculus through the gilded, floating leaves of a Harry Bertoia sculpture.

WSJ: Eero Saarinen, Shaping the Future, at the Museum of the City of New York | By Ada Louise Huxtable