Stairways to Heaven: Statement Staircases

To understand how a staircase can be an example of groundbreaking architectural design, one just needs to gaze upon the breathtaking set of stairs that leads customers into Apple’s subterranean store in Shanghai’s busy Pudong district.

Designed in part by Apple’s cofounder and creative supremo, the late Steve Jobs, the staircase was recently awarded a patent to protect every aspect of its design – 32 glass steps that twist down 16 feet from ground level, entwining around a cylinder made entirely of curved-glass panels. The design was honed over a staggering six years and three earlier versions.

The curved glass staircase at Apple's Shanghai store has been patented for its unique design. Photograph: Superstock. Banner image: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Photograph: Robert Harding

Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, the firm tasked with making the design a reality. “We strived for greater transparency, larger glass panels, fewer construction joints, and a minimal amount of stainless-steel attachments. The result is a glass staircase and cylinder that are elegantly simple and ethereal, while still providing daily customer access to the store below the plaza.”

The Apple stairs are very much of the 21st century, but memorable staircases can be found throughout history, their style often granting us a glimpse into the culture of the society in which they were built. The stepped pyramids of the deeply religious Mayans date back 2,000 years. The straight-flight, cut-stone steps – the simplest style of stairs – stretch up towards the sky, symbolizing the ascent into heaven.

IN STEP WITH HISTORY
Spiral or helical staircases feature in the Bible, but it took until the Roman Empire for this challenging design to flourish. Completed in AD 113, during the Empire’s glory days, is Rome’s Trajan’s Column: outside are decorative reliefs depicting battle victories; inside is a precisely calculated helical staircase enabling the Empire’s citizens to climb to the top and admire their thriving city.

From the baroque period and beyond, the desire for beauty and pageantry transformed the staircase into an architectural centerpiece that acted as a symbol of social status and prestige. The interlocking double-helix open staircase is the undisputed star of the highly ornate Renaissance Château de Chambord, built as a hunting lodge for King François I in France’s Loire Valley. And in Paris, the magnificently broad double staircase of the Palais Garnier opera house was the perfect place for the Beaux-Arts society to mingle.

“The strongest trend is to balance elegance with a lightweight aesthetic so that, as much as possible, the staircase appears to be floating”
Steven Bray, EeStairs

By the 18th and 19th centuries, even the remotest country manor in Europe featured grand staircases that wound elegantly up from the entrance hall. In the US, during the extravagant Gilded Age of the same period, elaborate staircases in private homes served to establish the social ambitions of the newly rich.

The Grand Staircase at the Palais Garnier in Paris. Photograph: Superstock

EeStairs, the global Dutch company that is behind many stand-out floating and cantilevered stairs, made from steel, glass, and stone. “It is technically very difficult and challenging because you have to ensure the treads themselves are stiff enough to show no perceptible movement on the free end, while retaining an appreciation for aesthetics and proportion.”

ART OF GLASS
A “floating” glass stair is arguably the ultimate light touch, but glass is popular in staircases of all shapes. “Glass stairs are like a water fountain, a see-through sculpture,” says Prague- and London-based architect Eva Jiricna, whose sinuous glass and steel spiral staircases are renowned throughout the world. “They also allow light to penetrate deep into a building. And today, with technology moving so fast, you can do so much more – glass is stronger, with extras such as non-slip surfaces and built-in LED lights that make a staircase glow.”

One of Eva Jircina's trademark curving glass creations that "allow light to penetrate deep into a building"

Castle Above the Clouds, a magnificent property in Stowe, Vermont, which features a black-walnut staircase rising majestically from the great hall. “A local artisan handcrafted the entire system – stairs, balusters, newel posts, with particular attention to the ‘turns’, carved from a solid piece of wood,” says Sharon Bateman of Pall Spera Company Realtors, an exclusive affiliate of Christie’s International Real Estate, who is marketing the property.

A residential composition in wood and glass by EeStairs

Atmos Studio, the stairs’ creator. “[This meant] figuring out which of the couple of hundred pieces would need to be placed first and which pieces would then be maneuvered into place after them.”

AHEAD OF THE CURVES
Atmos was asked to create a similar design for a superyacht, this time creating a sinewy staircase in steel with built-in LED lighting. “Every tread was unique,” recalls Haw, “a different diameter, width, and set of curves – yet genetically identical, and each belonged to an iterative geometrical sequence.”

Seductively glamorous is EeStairs’s elliptical staircase that’s painted in a liquid-pewter finish and teamed with deep-red treads. “What can be done with shapes and aesthetics is always moving forward, whether it be finishes or materials,” says Backus. “We use pressed bamboo now – a grass that has been made as hard and stable as board.”

Upside down and downside up: stairs by Michaelis Boyd in a private London residence. Photograph:

Michaelis Boyd introduced the fun factor to his family home in London by adding a slide to the stairs leading from the ground floor to the basement. Far more dramatic is the staircase he has created for a client, which resembles a set of stairs that has been inverted on itself. Made from perforated steel mesh, it’s sprayed an eye-popping red. “We wanted a material that would create a light feeling and allow light through,” says Michaelis.

When Jiricna was asked to design a new staircase for the neoclassical Somerset House in London, she faced a huge challenge. “How do you create something that can stand alongside two beautiful staircases that were created at a time when there weren’t the same health and safety issues as today?” she says.

Jiricna’s 21st-century answer was not her trademark glass, but Ductal, a new high-performance, organic fiber-filled concrete. It allowed her to create a wonderfully curvaceous spiral staircase, inspired by the human spinal column, the slightly undulating treads resembling vertebrae. It’s both beautiful and technologically brilliant.