Arnold
CibbuanoDramatic Stairways!
January 29th 2009 06:04
While you might find stairways rather boring, a well-designed set can actually change the look of your interior, and make people feel more welcome.
For example, this selection of 'Dramatic Stairways' on Mom's Turf shows us what good photography and well-designed stairs can do together. Sure, it helps to know a photographer with a good set of lights and photoediting software, but the stairs themselves are crucial to a well-designed home.
A starting point: the Wikipedia page on Stairways.
Did you know that the system of railings and posts is called balustrade? Such a simple design, one that we take for granted, but has a long and varied history, from the earliest European architects.
It becomes even more fascinating when you think about how you feel climbing stairs... walking up stairs in older homes in Sydney, you realize how uncomfortable it is to descend steep stairways, worse when they're narrow.
That's the price you pay for living in an old, antique home.
What about safety?
"In modern American building code, attention is paid to the possibility a child can get his head between balusters and then believe he is caught. Balusters are normally separated by at least the same measurement as the size of the square bottom section."
Yes, that's tragic, but unusually funny when it happens to Homer Simpson.
Spiral stairways are even more interesting, and lend themselves naturally to interesting photos which summon up ideas of complexity, regularity of form and Jorge Luis Borges' poems...
...these stairways have also been misused in films, where it's common to shoot up from the bottom, or down from the top, using the circular motion of someone climbing the stairs to indicate the futility of running in circles.
Perhaps the most famous, though:
"The Penrose stairs, devised by Lionel and Roger Penrose, are a famous impossible object. The image distorts perspective in such a manner that the stairs appear to be never-ending, a physical impossibility. The image was adopted by M. C. Escher in his iconic lithograph Ascending and Descending."
*these images are from Diamond Baratta Design and Luxury Retreats
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