Artists, historians, dreamers (I am aware of my generalization here) have always drawn this so famous image of the “way to heaven”. A beautiful seemingly hanging stairs that just keep reaching up and up and up into the skies. Now regardless of the symbolism of heaven the question here is why are stairs the chosen means of transportation into into eternity? Would it have been less magical if it were a ramp? an elevator? a form of super lighting teleportation?

Now I am going to give myself the green light to try to explain this interesting phenomena. The stairs indeed have a magical property that the other means of vertical transportation do not; the idea of the promenade. The idea is to reach heaven “one step at a time”. With every step you get closer, you ascend, you raise your rank until the ultimate goal. Time is meaningless when you are making your way to eternity. Stairs allows the person to ponder, to meditate, to relax as he is about to enter to eternal bliss. It reminds the person standing bottom of the stairs that he has to sacrifice, that he has to work in order to reach his destination. These are all qualities stairs have carried with them throughout time. 

Another point that I found interesting is that in Islam the way to heaven is said to be on what is known as the “Sirat”: A thin sharp wire attached to two ends of a cliff and hanging over hell fire. The place is dark and the line is thin. Only true believers will be given the ability to walk over this thin line, pass over hell below them and reach to the other side where heaven is. Now that is a completely different experience, image and symbolism that lies in this kind of “path to heaven” as oppose to stairs. 

I recently had the chance to briefly go through the series of 15 books prepared by Rem Koolhas on the elements of architecture prepared for the Venice Biennale 2014. One of the elements of the 15 that really interested me- The stairs. 

Everyday we encounter steps one way or another and became so accustomed to them that we have somehow ignored their significance, history and beauty. According to Friedrich Mielke the stair is “the queen of architecture although it never gets the attention it deserves.” Rem Koolhas sheds the light on the works of Mielke who spent 60 years theorizing, measuring staircases around the world, then authoring an astonishing number of 28 books completely dedicated to stairs. He also established the science of Scalalogy- the science of the interactions between humans and stairs, between foot and step. “Since no one could possible climb a stair without having contact with its steps, an inter-dependency is created, between the claims made by the living and the reflection of such clams by the material”  

I always had something of a love for stairs and fascinated over their endless types and material and hence the works of Mielke really fed into my passion and drove me into this quick decisions. 

I will from now on start posting pictures of interesting staircases I have encountered in all their different types and locations, in all their beauty or ugliness. 

If you are a stairs lover watch this space. 

Passing by one of the most well known residential parts of the city today I noticed something that had me thinking for hours. Two towers, side by side, both residential, both skyscrapers. The first was a simple designed tower with repeated floors and intruded, shaded balconies. The second tower had a more complex architectural design, one perhaps more attractive to the passerby. What caught my attention was something very interesting however. I notices, in those few seconds of driving by, a handful of birds flying over only one of those towers (I will leave the knowledge of which of the two to your own judgement). Th birds were perhaps even making home in some of the building’s  corners and balconies. Although the other tower was right adjacent I could hardly see any birds. That’s when I started to wonder about the habitability of the buildings we are creating in the city. Is it enough for a tower to provide aesthetic design and maximum view? or is it extreme functionality? Shouldn’t our buildings be about habitability and well being? If a building is seen as hostile and unfit for a bird to build its nest and relax under its shades and balconies then how do we expect it to be fit for human well being and growth? Buildings, special residential, have the ultimate  responsibility of creating a safe and integrated environment where individuals can actually build a home and not just be stacked in a fancy glazed tower that does not really express their most basic needs of a shelter. Architects, when designing, should embrace nature that is around them, be it hostile so they tame it, or mild so they expand to it. Climate, earth, nature all words that mean the same thing- the environment that surrounds our buildings. Environment dedicates, buildings answer. That is how it should always be.