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The Curved Staircase Escalera de trazo curvo

whi Fromthe slightly curving staircase model to the spiral t. ch calls In on Itself. From the single to the double and the t~Ple versions. These are the staircases that have prompted peermost daring displays of virtuosity in design, masonry and speclive, as well as the boldest sword duels and the most spectacular descents by dance troupes ..

[O.lB.]

Desde la ligeramente curvada hasta la que se enroUa sabre 51misma, en espiral; desde la sencilla, hasta 1adoble, a la triple. Son escaleras que han permitido los mas osados alardes de prcyecto, de aparejo petreo, de representaci6n en

perspectiva, las luchas mas encarnizadas entre espadachines, los descensos mas espectaculares [O.TB.J

de un cuerpo de baile ...

Escalera de trazo curvo

The Curved Staircase

A great deal of knowledge about and admiration for the great painting of ages gone by can be found in the work of Guillermo Perez Villa Ita (Tarifa, Spain, 19481, whose paintings from the 19705 and t980s are full of references to and evecations of the past. In some of his writings, the artist has been very critical of the international avant-garde, suggesting that the tradition can only be rejuvenated at this point by adding a healthy dose of irony to the melancholy of irremediable loss. The fact is that the modern claSSICS,from Duchamp to Mondrian, can also be traced in his work, but there are echoes of other artists too. La estancia (The Room) 119831, for example, shows a wall painted with an "Informalist" background. In a tribute to chaogenous abstraction, Perez Villalta portrays himself as a Rodinesque "Thinker" and as an Ecce Homo about to receive the crown of thorns from his alter ego painted In the background. This dream painting (the artist is napping on the right) also features a splendid curved staircase, without a handrail and suspended in the air, which would serve admirably to illustrate at least three of Tusquets's typologies. The stairway that Pontormo painted for Joseph in Egypt (c 15(8) immediately comes to mind, as does Edward Burne-Jones's The Golden 518/( (1880), but this one by Perez Villa Ita IS smaller and vacant. To which higher state of dreams or life might it lead' What tragedy, trick or joke awaits us if we try to climb its fragile steps' [J.A.R.1

Mucho conocimiento y admiracion par la gran pintura antigua hay en Guillermo Perez Villalta (Tarifa, 1948), CUYOS cuadros de los afios setenta y ochenta estan plagados de citas y evocaciones del pasado. El artista se ha mash-ado muy cntico en algunos textos con la internacional vanguardista, como si fuera posible ya un remozamiento de la tradicion que no sume una buena dosis de ironia a la melancolia de la perdida irremediable. La cierto es que los clasicos de la modernidad estan tambien presentes en su trabajo, desde Duchamp a Mondrian. Pero no s610 ellos: en La estancia (1983), par ejemplo, vemos un muro pintado con un fonda "informalisra'' que es un homenaje a la abstraccion caogenu. Aunque 10 esencial no es eso, sino una alegoria de caracter figurativo en la que el artista se autorretrata como "pensador" a 10 Rodin y como Ecce Homo, a punta de recibir la corona de espinas de su otro yo pintado en el fondo. En esa ensonacion (el artist-a, a la derecha, esta durmiendo la siesta) figure tambien una estupenda escalinata curva, sin barandilla y en el aire, que bien podria valer para ilustrar (al menos) tres de las tipologfas de Tusquets. Nos acordamos inmediatamente de la que pinto Pontormo para Jose en Egipto (hacia 1518), 0 de la que figura en The Golden Stair, de E. Burne-lones (1880), pero esta escalera de Perez Villalta es mas pequefia y esta vacia. ~Aque estado superior del sueno a de la vida puede conducir? iQue tragedia, que juego 0 que broma encontraremos si intentamos ascender per sus fragiles peldafios? [JAR.]

---\ III~

\ r

Guillermo

Perez vtnatta.

La estancia,

1985

Oil on canvas / Oleo sobre tela; 167 x 283 em Colecclon

Minimalist essence of the curved, winding or spiral staircase .. [0. T. B.J

Sintesis minirnalistade eualquier escalera de trazo curvo, de cualquier escalera helicoidal, de eualquier escalera de caracol.. [OTB.1

de ta Fundacicn

Juan March

Escalera de trazo curve The

CurvedStaircase

Billy Wilder,

Sunset Boulevard

I EI crepUsculo de los dioses. USA, 1950 Kobal Collection

The action of Billy Wilder's film Sunset Boulevard takes place almost entirely on its staircases. These are the stairs of the mansion owned by Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), an ageing Paramount Studios has-been, who is the dominating partner in a relationship with a young scriptwriter (William Holden). The mansion (or rather its staircases) is the quintessence of all the tradition of Hollywood's past splendour. There are echoes of certain films by Orson Welles, like Citizen Kane and The Magnificent Ambersons, with staircases that seem to evoke lost power, magnificence, loneliness and time running out. Sunset Boulevard is also reminiscent of the stately southern mansions featured in Wyler's films, such as The Little Foxes or The Heiress, markedly female-dominated establishments in which the staircase separates the private woman's world -located on the upper floor- from the public domain, where the descent IS staged. It is hardly surprising that Wilder should have considered Bette DavIs -the heroine of The Little Foxes- and Montgomery Clift, the opportunistic male lead in The Heiress, as possible alternatives for the starring roles in Sunset Boulevard. It is this self-referential nature that makes the staircase transcend its instrumental function as a piece of scenery. Staircases take over the film. The star's shadow passes up and down them; they form the "pathway of the princess", who IS attended by a loyal servant, a flim director who had followed her into exclusion. Eric von Stroheim plays this role

Toda la peticula El crepusculo de los dioses, dirigida

por

Billy Wilder, esta practicarnente cont.enida en sus escaleras. Son las escaleras de la mansion de Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), una vieja Estrella de la Paramount en decadencia que mantiene una relacion absorbente con un joven guionista (William Holden). Una mansion -unas escaleras- que concentra toda la tradici6n det pasado esplendor de Hollywood. Se pueden escuchar los ecos de algunas peliculas de Welles, como Citizen Kane y E1 esplendor de los Ambersons, con la impresion de unas escaleras que nos hablan del poder perdido, de la magnificencia. de la soledad, del tiempo que se acaba. Tarnbien resuenan las mansiones sudistas de las pellculas de Wyler, como La loba 0 La heredera, mansiones de afirmacion femenina en las que la escalinata separaba el mundo pnvado de 1al11ujer-situado en e1 piso superior- de 1a zona publica, abajo, donde se produda la puesta en escena del descenso. No es de extraiiar que Wilder pensase en Bette Davis -protagonista de La loba- y Montgomery Clift, que encarnaba a1 oportunista protagonista de La heredera, como posibles alternativas para protagonizar su pelicula. Ese caracter autorreferencial hace que esta pieza de decorado trascienda a su funci6n instrumental. Las escaleras se apoderan de la peticula, por elias discurre

la sombra de la

estrella, son "el camino de la princesa". asistida por un se:vidor fiel, un director de cine que 1a ha seguido en su margInacion. Un papel interpretado por Eric von Stroheim. en un

. e that Wilder crein an irresistible and masterly mirror gam . . . If ne of his favourrte ates in tribute to Stroh elm hlrnse , a directors. The film also includes other lavish starrcadseS't d f . hed tllrn rrec e those featured in Queen Keily, the un mrs I' hts . by Von Stroheim which starre d GIetta Swanson' . the Ig s exclUSively to and shadows of a splendour t h a t b e long cinema. D' But perhaps The film's artistic director was Hans reier. . thtaking "Classlc what IS most significant is that the brea . he . f paorer mac e Hollywood" staircase was not a piece 0 d to the . hich belonge stage scenery but a real staircase, w d _Renaissance mansion in which the film was shot, a pS~~h a United States castle built in 1924 for a former consul a I ~etty. Close to in Mexico, and later repurchased by J. Pau dt was demoParamount but not right on Sunset Boulev:~t ~; the set for lished in the late 1950s, after serving as P Rebel without a Cause. . b th melodramatic It is a stairway of shadow and light, 0 mate . fI 's consum and terrifying, as can be seen In the 1m d d scends it like final sequence, In which Norma Desmond b e press and the a star reborn, an ageing princess, vlewe ( the murder by the police who have come to arrest h~ ~~e end of an of her lover. This crepuscular scene ma~.s the very hisera to which there is no gOing back, ma Ing the old and . . tory of cinema a narrative Ian d ma rk between new. [J.B.J

irresistible juego de espejos que Wild.er ejercita can l1:-ano maestra en homenaje al propio Stroheim, uno de sus direcferidos Porque otras escaleras Iastuosas, las de La tores PKre~IY peli~ula inacabada dirigida par Stroheim y protarewa , bOO la pellcula . d par Swanson, aparecen tam len en .' gOlllza a y sombra de un esplendor que ya solo es del Cine. l como uz 'H Dreie Pero EI director artistico de 1a pebcula fue ~ns rei r. . . . , I mas significativo es que esa escalinata apoteostca qurzas 0 ddt' piedra del Hollywood clasico no era un decora 0 e car on ., ' . I al que formaba parte de 1a mansion en sino una esca era re . . la que se rodo la pelicula, un castillo seudorenacentls~a construido en 1924 para un ex-consul de Estados Unidos en M' 'co recomprada posteriormente por J. Paul Getty. La eXl.,' cercana a la Paramount aunque no exactamente en mansion. I d I - s cin Boulevard fue demo1ida a fina es e os ana Sunse t , . I d d corado para cuenta, despues de servir, parCIa mente, e e Rebelde sin causa. ,_ Una Escalera de sombras y luces, melodrama.tlea Y terroII a como se evidencia en la magistral secuencl~ final de la r ~ '1 cuando Norma Desmond baja la escahnata comO ~~ac:s~eUa renacida. como una princesa envejecida, a~te la ta polida que viene a detenerla por el aseslllato prensa Y ca el final de de su amante Una escena crepuscular, que mar . t una epoca a ·la que no se puede regresar. que con~~r e 1a propia historia del cine en un hito argumental de 10 vieJo Y

10 nuevo, llRJ

~1

, 1

Escalera de (raw curvo

The Curved Staircase

,"

Frank O. Gehry & Associates,

"2

Maquette

for the project

submitted

to the Museum

Island competition

I

Maquetn del pruyecto para el concurso de la Isla de los Musecs. Berlin,

1997

Wood I Madera; 66 x 45,7 x 91,4 em Frank o. Gehry & Associates

Over 50 years of uninterrupted Frank

O. Gehry

has succeeded

architectural

in building

production,

many of what star-

ted out as mere intuitions jotted down in random sketches. As his works

progress,

one can see something

remarkable

happening: how even the most simple and compact volumes of his buildings are shot through with a disquieting irregularity of forms.

Since the 1970s,

Gehry has developed

a personal

stra~egy for a?apting and reusing an already existing building: the interpolation of extraneous forms that cross it with their own spontaneous curve

and are sliced

ses to project concept Gehry also,

movement. open,

outwards.

has applied

allowing

architecture,

to his own, original

first needs to build

even an extremely

mundane

can use as a basis on which

pass through,

the skylights

This technique

in understanding

Gehry

As these

is indeed

the walls

and staircaa complete

and it is one that buildings.

In the latter

a canonical

structure,

at times

one. A sturdy

framework

that he

he is then free to decide

where

A 10 largo de cincuenta anos de constante produccion arquitectonica, Frank O. Gehry ha logrado construir muchas

and how to fragment.

de las intuiciones que sus dibujos deshilachados

a wooden

intentaban

anticipar,

Mientras sus obras avanzan, puede asistirse a un fenomeno especial: vel' como se extiende entre los volumenes mas simples y cornpactos de sus editicios, cierta intranquilidad de formas irregulares. Desde los mas setenta, Gehry ha desarroIla?o u~a estrategia personal para intervenir y reutilizar un edificio existente: la intrornision de forrnas ajenas que 10 atraviesan con un movimiento pro pia y esponuineo. A su paso S8 doblan y se rasgan las paredes, y sobresalen lucernarios Y escaleras. Este mecanisme se convierte en toda una forma de entender la arquitectura, y se traslada a sus edificios de nueva planta. Tambien en el10s Gehry necesita construir primero un volumen canonico, a veces incIuso extremadamente vulgar. Un armazon segura donde apoyarse para decidir d6nde y

going to stretch

break and bend, and which material

in order to transform

framework

Museum

Island competition

for the

sacrosanct

he

the histone buildings

and Stuler on the River Spree. During the second

phase of the competition, ted into the interior

in 1949, the maileable

was the staircases

the Neues Museum. Like I.M. Pel in hls exemplary ned a network although

metal scales ...

that Gehry submitted

in Berlin, the exisfing buildings

had fa work with were almost by Schinkel

what is left, a steel mesh,

a stone cladding,

In the case of the project

he is

of curved

Gehry's

staircases

proposal

element

Inl~c-

in the central atrium 0

. Louvre project, Gehry desigunder a glass skylight,

was completely

dlfferenf

.,

from Pel s ..

Once again staircases are the stars of the architectural show In . ' th· tt·lfude differs from a wide, empty central space. However, elr a t ·es They prefer that of so many other examples from past ceO. un . convulsed

forms

to serene

monumentality.

[A.Q.M.J

como fragmentar, romper, curvar, y que sustancia extender para desfigurar sus restos: una maUa de acero, ~~ entramado de madera, un aplacado de piedra, escamas metalicas ... En el proyecto de concurso para la Isla de los Museos de Berlin, los restos con ]05 que jugar son casi intocables: los histori cos edificios de Schinkel y Stuler, junto al rio Spree. En la segunda lase del concurso, en 1997, la sustancia maleable que

se inyectani en su interior seran finalmente las escaleras en el atria central del Neues Museum. Como LM. Pei llevo a cabo en su paradigrnatica intervencion en el Museo del Louvre. tarnbien Gehry colocara un sistema de escaleras CUT vas bajo un lucernario de vidrio, aunoue de un modo completarnente distinto. De nuevo las .escaler.as son las protagonistas de la arquitectura, en un espacio amplio, vado y central. Pem su actitud es diferente a la d.~mntos otros ejemplos mentalidad

de siglos pasados. serena.

IAQ.M.l

Prefieren

la conVUlSIOn a la monu-

Escalera de trazo curve

The Curved Staircase

Leonardo da Vinci, t B fol 69 recto Double spiral staircase, notebook B I Escalera doble de caracol, came .' , 1487-1492 Bibliotheque de I'lnstitut de France Giuseppe Momo, ~ . I81.a doble del castillo de Chambord. Double staircase, Chateau de Cham bard I Esca Loire Valley, France I Valle del Loira, Francia, c. 1530

V ucen Museums I Escala doble de los Museos varicanos. Double staircase, a I Roma. 1932 .

~dreaPalladio, 97 Los Quatro libros de arquitecfura, Imprenta Real, Madrid, 17 Book I Libra; 41,5 x 28,5 x 3 em Biblioteca del Col·legi d'Arquitecles de Catalunya

Curved staircases force the stone to perform a beautiful and complicated dance and their craftsmen to cut and sculpt it with care so as to make it seem light and malleable, forming a perfect line that twists uninterruptedly, Yet an even harder game can be devised by splitting staircases in two, three or four, into a jungle of ramps surrounding a single central space which can accommodate several people at once without their hindering each other's movement up and down the stairs. Leonardo da Vinci had already devised a double spiral staircase, which probably influenced the design of the famous interior staircase of the Ch'§teau de Chambord, since during the last year of his life he was a guest at its royal patron, Francis I. Buiit In c, 1530, this broad double staircase also incorporates a smaller central spiral staircase, which ascends to the tower spire. In 1570, Palladia announced that he had heard extraordinary reports about this castle, "an absolutely new and most handsome invention". He spoke of four staircases that ascended one on top of another to four different rooms, where the people gOing up and down could see each other but did not meet, and "without one person encroaching on the stairway of another". This description corresponds more closely to another of Leonardo's designs than to the Chateau de Chambard, Fortunately, Palladia also drew a plate with

y como se la irnagina ademas curva, 10 que obtie, I e efec ne es una especr.ie de cadena de ADN petreo ell ,a que.f 'tivamente, cuatro personas diferentes S8 cruza~an en ~rm~, . ene ontrarse nunca , aunque para evitarse zamente sm , cterta .. ., deberian tener muy claro desde un prmcipio a frustraclon, ill

Las escaleras cur vas obllgaban a la piedra a un baile dificil y bello, y a sus artesanos a cortarla y tallarla can cuidado para hacerla parecer ligera y rnaleable, formando una linea perfecta que se retuerza sin interrupcion. Pero aun puede inventarse un juego mas dificil y desdoblar las cscaleras en dos, en tres 0 en cuatro, en una marana de rampas que rodean un mismo espacio central y par las que pueden circular varias personas sin molestarse en el ascenso y en el descenso. Leonardo da Vinci ya dibujo una escalera helicoidal y doble. y es probable que influyera en el disefio de la famosa escalera interior del castillo de Cham bard, ya que en e1ltltimo ana de Sil vida fue huesped de Sil constructor, Francisco I. Esta ancha escalera doble, realizada en torno a 1530, tiene ademas otra pequeita escalera de caracol en el centro, que sube hasta la aguja de la torre, Palladio nos dice en 1570 que ha aida alga extraordinario sobre este castillo, 'luna invenci6n del todo nueva y hermosisima", y nos habla de cuatro escaleras que suben una sobre otra a cuatro habitaciones diferentes, donde los que suben y bajan se ven sin encontrarse, "y sin caminar los unos par I~s escaleras de los otros", Esta descripci6n se corresponde mas can otro de los disefios que Leonardo produjo que con la reaUdad de Chambord. Afortunadamente, Palladio dibuja tambien una lamina para intentar explicarnos esta complicada

, t em,· d arvel to us And the purpose of explaining this comp Irca d " lda,I what he achieve since he also imagined It to be he I'ICOI ,f was a sort of stone DNA chain' on w h'IC h ,In' deed.' four dif e, , pass by eae h ather , Without ever rent people would giddily actually meeting, although they wou Id nee d to have, a very clear Idea at the outset to which room they were gorng. While clients With such needs are f ew and far between, f I I been most use u double staircases and ramps have a ways id colli, ditree tiIon s so as to f'aVOI for separating traffic in opposite ' , 'h f donkey traf IC In Slons, They have been deVised bot or II d built water-well shafts, such as that designed by Sanga a dannarilY , I Ike the extraor I In Orv18to in 1527, or for two peop e, I, built by leisurely-paced double ramp of the Vatican Museums , l Giuseppe Momo In 1932, which opens up increasing Y towards the light. the double . ble works are ' Two more unique and Incompara z (1499-1500), almost magical staircase at the Castle of Gra d further which succeeds in constantly drawing nearer t~:~ entirely; tram itself until it almost peters out and dlsapp t f Santo . ., 'n the conven a and the tnple staircase hidden away I I I the latter, Domingo de Bonaval in Santiago de composste:~Iiv:ring us the three slender stone limbs thrust upward, bt that . us in no dou safely to each doorstep, and leaVing t.mes archiAndrade, its bUilder, was a juggler, and that some I tecture can take one's breath away, [A,Q.M.1

maravi a,

quieren subir, , un cliente con es~s n.ecesldades, ro las escaleras y las rampas dobles han ~Ido Sle~pre rnuy pe ar sin conflictos las dos circulaciones conue habitacion

q

Es dificil encontrar

utiles para separ

1

, De burros en los pozos de agua. como e que tra~(a:i·lo construy6 en Orvieto en 1527, 0 de perS?nas, como Sa I~ lentisima escalera doble de los Museos Vall canos. q~e en Giuseppe M orne rea \·1Z0' en 1932 , abriendose cada vez mas

h . I tuz ac~ :tras' dos obras {micas e inigualables son 1a esea1era d ble casi magica del castilto de Graz (1499-1500), que es a az ~e acercarse Y alejarse constantemenle de. 51 mtSma, cap . t rse y desapareeer y la escaJera tnple que se hasta casl anu a "B I 1 convento de Santo Dommgo de onava. en esco~de ~neeCompostela. Porque lanzar a la vel esos lr.es Santiago 'edra a desenroscarse en el aire con esa VIObrazos de fina pI. tiem de bajarnos al pie de cada lencia y lle~arn~s s~~~:e~:e su :nstructor Andrade era un puerta } ?etaJa m : mala bans • Y q e pir.cion. lAQ.M.J

a veces 1a arquitectura

puede cortar

1a res--

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