Anjali Sreekumar

HT4002

“The staircase is the symbolic spine of the house”- Peter Wollen
Through these notes, the study aims to depict the changes that happened over time from an organically formed staircase to a designed entity- The changes in position, how various socio-cultural shifts caused changes in position of stair and how that adds to living conditions or how effectively it acts as a spine by holding the house as a cohesive unit rather than dividing the house into different levels in a single dwelling unit. Through these notes we have seen staircases in very specific examples such as in Jahapanani pol, Kalyan Rath Bungalow, Shyamal row house and Aryaman tenement. These staircases which was constructed in different periods of time reflect to a certain extend the zeitgeist. While the stairs in pol houses are organically formed, there are various roles stairs play in pol houses such as the gender roles, user segregation etc.