Staircases

Book excerpt: This volume showcases the astonishing diversity of staircases over the centuries, from the stepped pyramids of the Maya to the exquisitely proportioned stairs of the Renaissance, to the elaborate balustraded confections of the Baroque period, to the computer-aided designs of today. A dazzling range of photographs, many specially taken for this book, illustrates chronologically ordered essays. Among the scores of featured staircases are Michelangelo's double stair at the Palazzo dei Senatori on the Capitoline Hill in Rome; the double-spiral stair at Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley; the entrance stair in the Winter Palace (now the Hermitage) in St Petersburg; the radical spiral ramp of Frank Lloyd Wright's Guggenheim Museum; and the exterior stair at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. The authors also explore the magical and symbolic meanings of the staircase. Powerful emblems of technological and artistic achievement, these staircases are inherently dynamic, as is every page of this illustrated book.