The back end of the opera! That is so cool😮 Is it weird that I saw the steps and thought of Victorian dresses as a reason for the step height, but I didn't think of Queen Victoria herself. Watching you descend the stairs with the flourish at the end.😂 Brilliant!
The Winchester House of Mystery has similar stairs. Mrs. Winchester was short as well. You can see where the risers were modified from normal height to reduced height. She also had an elevator installed. She was the widow of the Winchester rifle manufacturer. Her moving from the east coast to California meant that she could legally own her own fortune and property instead of having to turn it over to a husband if she had remarried.
The lady in question didn't have decent period products. Not even some nicer cloth linings. She had to leave the room and 'change her clothes' every few hours, beginning the stereotype that women are always changing their outfits.
@Tvianne What on earth are you talking about? Flax is a plant, its been around forever. Its also been being turned into linen, a fabric used to make clothes, by humans for give or take, 10000 years. (Yes, ten thousand). So unless flax means something else, I have a hunch you might be wrong.
@@piney4562 Ohhhh, really? are you sure? suresuresure?🙄 so, if you're familiar with flax and linen, please educate yoursef before you spout nonsense, would you? if you're up to it, google 'Abby Cox period'. It's about 18th century period management (with also 'experimental archeology'), a wopping hundred years early, but I think it would still be relevant (considering I have some of my mother's still brand new linen pads, yep, still relevant). Cheers. PS: ops, you're not the genius I was addressing. That's what you get when add your 2cents to a discussion without checking the entire conversation. To be clear: I was being sarcastic toward a very misguided person. Have a nice day.
The Winchester Mystery House has a staircase that's so shallow that it's practically a ramp. It was made that way to accommodate Mrs. Winchester in her old age. I wonder now if it was made that way in part so she wouldn't have to bother with her skirts.
She was also a rather short woman (under 5 feet tall, iirc) with arthritis, so lifting her feet high or stepping down a long way would have been painful. The skirts could have been a factor, though!
I immediately thought of the Winchester and those stairs! I went with my baby daughter, I carried her, and I effing loved those stairs. So much easier to negotiate.
Came here to say this too, the stairs and passageways are very short and narrow because of her personal stature. Also there are many false staircases to confuse ghosts who followed her, but that's another story, lol.
My house has a narrow steep staircase, cause I’m a low class girl in a 100 y old ordinary house. Upper classes just have more space, money, etc. I’m pretty sure some French palaces from 1600’s had extra wide doors for elaborate dresses.
@@grace52775- Do not romanticize builders in the past. They cut every corner they could - unless building for a specific rich person. Building codes were put in place to make sure there were minimum standards. I lived in a late 19th century house. My husband had to completely rebuild it to make it livable.
@@TheSuzberry yes, early 20’century houses didn’t have electricity, indoor lavatory, radiators or double glazing. Fireplaces for heating, CO right into your bedroom. Most of us absolutely refuse timetravel, I like this century.
I love how ladies' fashion throughout the centuries has disabled women's bodies. Skirts (not just the long and bulky historical types, but also mini- and pencil skirts), high heels, long fingernails etc. Bound feet are the most extreme example
There is actually a fictitious city in a game that has no stairs in it. It's one of the few places with advanced technology, and one of the favored sports is roller derby, so the city is designed for wheels.
As an architect, there are many reasons for this. The drama of a larger staircase in palatial buildings was important, people were on average much shorter, there were no lifts back then so elderly and fatigued people needed shallower steps, and they also were wide with long treads because they were places to socialize at events. Fashion could have been a part of it but there are many fictional benefits.
I know you meant "functional benefits" since you just listed several, but you typed "fictional benefits" and I'm tickled by the idea that an architect would consider those too. "If a work of fiction was to feature this very handsome building, might the astute reader recognise the place by description of the staircases? Might I then achieve renown and publicity and wider clientele, perhaps at Court where they read such things? Worth a try!"
@@captaincube132as for me, when I read "fictional benefits" my mind went a different route, and thought of benefits that don't really exist, like, idk, "this staircase let goblins climb up to the top floor more easily", or something like that 😂😂
The building designed to hold the US Pension Bureau in 1887, 32 years after the end of the US Civil War, was built with very shallow staircases to accommodate disabled veterans. (Pensions were chiefly for veterans.) It is now the National Building Museum, a very fitting use for a fascinating building.
The grand stairs at Stockholm City Hall, where the Nobel Banquet is held, has really shallow steps. It's designed so that elegant ladies, with their fancy dresses, look elegant and fancy walking down them. Gender specific architecture just to make the ladies look pretty.
The stairs at.the Winchester Mystery House in California are shallow like this. They were also built in the Victorian Era for a woman who was only 4' 11" so the dress theory makes sense. On the other hand, the stairs in the Betsy Ross house are so steep that getting up them in modern clothing isnt easy, I have no idea how a woman in a full length gown did it every day.
People literally died on those tall, narrow stairs. Imagine you're a servant with your skirts, AND your arms are full because they better be full because you're working and you gotta stay busy. You can't see your feet, or the steps, and you can't hold up the skirts or onto the balustrade. Like, the reason why there were people doing mathematic equations on stair dimensions was because it became a minor public health crisis in England.
@@Levacque agreed. I recently discovered an ancestor that fell down the steep stairs in her uncles general store and spent the next couple of years crippled, only walking by holding on the back of a chair and pushing it around like a walker, until she died around 1918 at about age 40.
There were other calculations for staircase design in the Winchester House, for example, to confuse the ghosts that followed her around. But that's another story.
@@abyrupus True, there were odd staircases to confuse the spirits Mrs. Winchester believed were following her. However, there were also mostly normal ones made for her use that had super shallow steps.
Friends and I rented a tiny old home for a weekend and the stairs to the second floor were closer to a ladder. It was a devilish time trying to lug my big weekender bag up, and even worse trying to get it back down without toppling all the way to the bottom.
Architect here. There are indeed calculations made when designing this aspect of a staircase. They take into consideration the length of a person’s stride. But it’s based on a man’s proportions usually, so this is refreshing. You can safely go up or down stairs if all of the steps are the same height and width. Otherwise it can get tricky. 1 cm off and people start stumbling. 😂
Comment: the most comfortable stairs I’ve ever climbed are in the paimio hospital designed by Aalto, in Finland. They’re soooooooo easy to climb for patients. Beautiful.
It's very much about class. Compare the different staircases for guests and for servants in an old manor and it's very apparent! This staircase is in a very fancy venue used by royalty so it gets the most luxurious steps. Any fancier and it would be a ramp lol.
@@SAOS451316 I used to live in a large house that was built in 1899 which was large enough to have a couple of rooms in the attic for servants. The ground and 1st floor stairs (apart from the bannister) were exactly like the ones in this vid but the cellar and attic stairs were like what you get in a mill worker's terrace in the same town.
Parents house is a semi detached half of a grand old farmhouse dating back to 1666, and our neighbours have a pidley little staircase for the servants, whereas we have a grand wide staircase you to sweep down in your ball gown and catch a coach into town. We also found a rack of bells in the loft while fitting insulation which you could ring for servants, and our "shed" is a two-storey bothey with room for pigs downstairs and farm labourers upstairs.
Makes me think of horse stairs... I spent a lot of time in the cavalry so I used to walk them a lot, just short and wide enough that a person can't take a propper step.
@@ellengrace4609yep, or more specifically, they made stairs for important men who wanted to ride their horse somewhere that horses probably shouldn't go, or just in the streets of very hilly towns 😂 they're pretty neat, they have a low rise and a very wide/deep step, and normally the wide step is also sloped very gently so that you gain a little extra height without making it hard for the horses.
I was at Goethe's House in Weimar Germany. That man had insanely shallow steps on his stairs. To be fair though, he rented the place. It was built around 70 years before he moved in if I remember correctly
even the most specific and random details about England's history you can make it sounds so interesting!! i'm not even from a english speaking country and i want to learn more 😂😂
On an opposite note, I remember the Coliseum steps being extra high as a kid. It might just have been me being a child, but my house stairs were and are standard-issue stairs, and I felt the difference. I wonder if steps actually did use to be higher (and more inconvenient) a millennium or two ago.
For indoors most likely not as high because the ones that can afford to have multi-floor buildings are rich ones and they wont like inconvenient staircases. For Colosseum i would guess because people rarely come into the building (only during events) so a minor inconvenience is not really an issue. On the other hand defense structures like castle walls and forts have very uncomfy stairs of different heights and maybe even shapes (im not very into it so cmiiw) so when invaders come in they arent used to it and might stumble or need to pay attention to their feet while also fighting against the defenders. The defenders are used to the stairs by patrolling their own place, so while its uncomfy for them its not a disadvantage.
The ones at the Coliseum were probably built extra steep to match with the seating slope, set so people could see. Just like in a modern theater or stadium. In addition, the stairs are probably worn.
Hi J, love your channel! I noticed that the stairs next to Scarborough's cliff lift were weirdly shallow, (It's a weird thing for me to remember, haven't been there in years) they were easy to go down, but a pain in the neck to go up, being used to modern standard step height. This totally would explain it, I expect people would likely have walked down, then taken the lift back up afterwards. The Scarborough Grand Hotel is at the top, it was built in a V-shape in honour of queen Victoria (I don't know if she ever visited) but the shallow steps would definitely make sense for long skirts!
I read a book that featured a detail that's apparently accurate to medieval Irish castles: they'd sometimes have stairs of all different heights within a single staircase so people who lived there and used the stairs every single day were just used to them and could go up and down normally but invaders would be massively slowed down tripping on them the whole time and be put at a major disadvantage for storming the castles.
There used to be a department store one town over that had the nicest stairs to climb. They were not fatiguing to climb, at all, even after the three flights from bottom to top. They were also wide enough to allow large pieces of furniture to be manœuvered through the landings.
It’s also helpful if you’re elderly with mobility issues and it causes you to take smaller steps which creates a graceful floating effect in big floor length skirts
That was an interesting take on stairs! I know that the height and width of steps should have some sensible relation for the stair to be "comfortably walked" (even in pants), and if it is too far off the stairs become bad. The worst I've encountered are the outdoor stairs at the Communications Systems Lab at Lancaster University, it was unwalkable.
I lived in an Victorian era house from age 2 till 8. It had 2 staircases. One directly above the other. And while made of polished wood the steps were just as shallow. They were also about 7 feet wide. And the sliding races we had on rainy days kept us occupied for hours. Loved that house even though it was cold and damp.
The stairs in Goethe's house in Weimar quite narrow as well. He was involved in the design process of his house and he was very particular about the stairs. He wanted them to be very comfortable to climb so visitors wouldn't be exhausted. I really appreciate the idea. The stairs are actually pretty comfortable to climb. I wish more stairs were designed with this in mind. But I guess comfortable stairs probably take up more space.
I'm a UX UI design student And part of our homework every week is finding something with good or bad design to present. Found my design for the week. It's actually really ingenious.
During a tour at the Winchester house, the guide said that Sarah, quite short at only 4'10", had low rise stairs were put in to help her with her arthritis. Being on the shorter side with joint problems, I found myself wishing all stairs were like that.
I work at a travel agency, mostly dealing with Japanese tourists. There were occasions that the operator in Japan demanding the height of the tour buses’ stairs, which is understandable since there are a lot of elderly people joining these tours in Japan, these should be considered. I remember the height of the bathtub and the depth inside it was asked. Although it can be time-consuming and frustrating, for the reason above, really understandable.
At The Getty in LA, the big outdoor area leading into the main building has shallow steps. When I visited, I was using a cane, and those steps were so helpful. They also felt welcoming.
I work at an old hall, the staircase starts huge and gets progressively smaller as it goes up, they used to tell people it was so dresses flowed out behind you but in fact it was to make the staircase look slightly bigger and more impressive.
The main stair in the Blue Hall at Stockholm City Hall is also designed in a way that everyone descending would look beautiful. If you can; watch the banquet of the Nobel prize event on December 10th when all royals, laureates and politicians enter the hall. It’s beautiful!
The Winchester Mystery House has steps even lower & wider throughout the mansion. Sarah Winchester was very small in stature & had these built. I love those steps so much. They were the easiest I’d ever climbed & I felt so stable & secure on the larger platform of each step. They’re great!
My high school had short steps in the stairwells at one end of the building. Turns out, when it was first built, it housed all grades from kindergarten through 12th and the rooms used for kindergarten and the lower grades were nearest the stairwells with short steps.
I went to a school where the main building was an 1880 mansion. There were two staircases- a main stair, with shallow steps like this, and the servant's stair, which had really high steps by modern standards to save space.
Literally was at a library today, and it had really shallow steps and just put it down to the building “being old” but now I know why it “being old” equates to it having shallow steps!
On a rough day, the vicarious happiness I experience through your enjoyment of wearing historical garb in an historical situation elucidating on the history thereof... maybe it leads to further research on my part, or maybe just a smile, but your content is always welcome and welcomed.
The most useful thing learned about stairs is that the height of the riser multiplied by the number of steps between each floor gives you the height between floors and you can use that to estimate the height of the building to the top floor.
Reminds me of the short staircase steps in the Winchester Mansion. Those were so short because old lady Winchester had arthritis and couldn't step up very high at all.
in Newport, Rhode Island there is a Gilded Age Mansion called the Breakers that was built by the Vanderbilts. The Grand Staircase is the opposite of this. The stairs are very tall and deep. So, when the woman of the home walks down the stairs to make an entrance, it looks like she glides.
We stayed at an apartment building opposite Little Queens in Lyndhurst. Some parts of the building are several hundred years old, showing very low, widened doors to accommodate the wide 17th century pannier bustles. So interesting!
Actually my public library has large trim along the guard rail that extends about 4-5” above the stairs. I asked about it one day and apparently the original purpose was to prevent people looking up a lady’s skirt as she went up the stairs.
As someone who grew up with dogs, I really appreciate shallow stairs. Stairs are not designed for dogs. They're designed for humans. As a result, running up and down the stairs can hurt a dog's back as they age. The steeper the angle, the harder it is on them. Shallow steps allow dogs to more comfortably climb stairs.
Reminds me of the stairs in the Winchester house in the US. Very shallow steps that switched back multiple times as a mobility solution for an elderly woman.
I was recently trying to walk around with multiple underskirts and boots and realized that bussles and hoop skirts give more room for the boots to move around and not get tangled up in the dress.
Try out the stairs for yourself here: bit.ly/49bGOa7
I thought they had been designed for an old patron. I had not considered the skirts.
The back end of the opera! That is so cool😮
Is it weird that I saw the steps and thought of Victorian dresses as a reason for the step height, but I didn't think of Queen Victoria herself.
Watching you descend the stairs with the flourish at the end.😂 Brilliant!
Looks like you had fun filming this 😃
The Winchester House of Mystery has similar stairs.
Mrs. Winchester was short as well. You can see where the risers were modified from normal height to reduced height. She also had an elevator installed.
She was the widow of the Winchester rifle manufacturer. Her moving from the east coast to California meant that she could legally own her own fortune and property instead of having to turn it over to a husband if she had remarried.
I feel like this is common in large theatres. Ive seen a few theatres with these shallow stairs
My old Dad(a builder) always said his two favourite aspects of Victorian buildings were staircases and drains!
Drains?
@@Brasswatchmanthere's a story in that
What does your young dad say?
what about your new dad?
I also want to hear about the drains!
I mean, the lady in question was the ruling queen, that seems like the prime candidate to pay attention to.
The lady in question didn't have decent period products. Not even some nicer cloth linings. She had to leave the room and 'change her clothes' every few hours, beginning the stereotype that women are always changing their outfits.
Reigning*
@@demo2823 yes, flax didn't exist yet.
@Tvianne What on earth are you talking about? Flax is a plant, its been around forever. Its also been being turned into linen, a fabric used to make clothes, by humans for give or take, 10000 years. (Yes, ten thousand).
So unless flax means something else, I have a hunch you might be wrong.
@@piney4562 Ohhhh, really? are you sure? suresuresure?🙄 so, if you're familiar with flax and linen, please educate yoursef before you spout nonsense, would you? if you're up to it, google 'Abby Cox period'. It's about 18th century period management (with also 'experimental archeology'), a wopping hundred years early, but I think it would still be relevant (considering I have some of my mother's still brand new linen pads, yep, still relevant). Cheers. PS: ops, you're not the genius I was addressing. That's what you get when add your 2cents to a discussion without checking the entire conversation. To be clear: I was being sarcastic toward a very misguided person. Have a nice day.
The quality of your shorts is superb. Just enough detail to pass on knowledge, without being boring, accompanied by funny video. Loving it.
And also the effort!
Agreed
Yes!!!!😮😮😮😊😊😊
AND she's a beauty for sure!
I 100% agree...her shorts are amazing! Plus, love the boots she's got on
The Winchester Mystery House has a staircase that's so shallow that it's practically a ramp. It was made that way to accommodate Mrs. Winchester in her old age. I wonder now if it was made that way in part so she wouldn't have to bother with her skirts.
She was also a rather short woman (under 5 feet tall, iirc) with arthritis, so lifting her feet high or stepping down a long way would have been painful. The skirts could have been a factor, though!
The Winchester Mystery House is fascinating. Glad to see someone else knows about it.
I immediately thought of the Winchester and those stairs!
I went with my baby daughter, I carried her, and I effing loved those stairs. So much easier to negotiate.
This is what came to mind for me too! Everything y’all said is what I remember the tour guide saying about the low risers.
Came here to say this too, the stairs and passageways are very short and narrow because of her personal stature. Also there are many false staircases to confuse ghosts who followed her, but that's another story, lol.
Ngl, the idea that high-class Victorian were absolutely eating it on stairs enough that they had to engineer around it is very, very funny to imagine
Imagine the spectacle - the absolute kerfuffle - of a monarch wearing 75 pounds of hoop skirt absolutely beefing it down a flight of stairs
@@Valkyrie9000 Your slang is unwelcome.
My house has a narrow steep staircase, cause I’m a low class girl in a 100 y old ordinary house.
Upper classes just have more space, money, etc.
I’m pretty sure some French palaces from 1600’s had extra wide doors for elaborate dresses.
@@grace52775Sheesh. We're all screwed.
@@grace52775But a house 100 years ago would have narrower and steeper staircases than what's required by code now. You win some; you lose some.
Or those double doors that can be opened on both sides to allow wide skirts.
@@grace52775- Do not romanticize builders in the past. They cut every corner they could - unless building for a specific rich person. Building codes were put in place to make sure there were minimum standards. I lived in a late 19th century house. My husband had to completely rebuild it to make it livable.
@@TheSuzberry yes, early 20’century houses didn’t have electricity, indoor lavatory, radiators or double glazing. Fireplaces for heating, CO right into your bedroom. Most of us absolutely refuse timetravel, I like this century.
Accessibility with shallow stairs is awesome. For skirts or people with mobility issues. All steps should still be like that. Lol
I love how ladies' fashion throughout the centuries has disabled women's bodies. Skirts (not just the long and bulky historical types, but also mini- and pencil skirts), high heels, long fingernails etc. Bound feet are the most extreme example
There is actually a fictitious city in a game that has no stairs in it. It's one of the few places with advanced technology, and one of the favored sports is roller derby, so the city is designed for wheels.
@@sheepewe4505 Neck stretching rings are also super extreme
I agree. It's good for people as they get older, too. They do take more space, though.
my thought exactly! i have some mobility issues and stairs like these are so much easier to walk up and down.
As an architect, there are many reasons for this. The drama of a larger staircase in palatial buildings was important, people were on average much shorter, there were no lifts back then so elderly and fatigued people needed shallower steps, and they also were wide with long treads because they were places to socialize at events. Fashion could have been a part of it but there are many fictional benefits.
I know you meant "functional benefits" since you just listed several, but you typed "fictional benefits" and I'm tickled by the idea that an architect would consider those too. "If a work of fiction was to feature this very handsome building, might the astute reader recognise the place by description of the staircases? Might I then achieve renown and publicity and wider clientele, perhaps at Court where they read such things? Worth a try!"
@@captaincube132 haha yup, you're right
@@captaincube132as for me, when I read "fictional benefits" my mind went a different route, and thought of benefits that don't really exist, like, idk, "this staircase let goblins climb up to the top floor more easily", or something like that 😂😂
@@Alfonso162008Whereas I went to 'how will this architectural feature help me break out of writers block and flights of procrastination'
In an old house in Monschau, Germany, they also had grooves in the end of the stair railing so that ladies could feel when the stairs were ending.
Great idea!
cool shit
Also helpful for the visually impaired!
The building designed to hold the US Pension Bureau in 1887, 32 years after the end of the US Civil War, was built with very shallow staircases to accommodate disabled veterans. (Pensions were chiefly for veterans.) It is now the National Building Museum, a very fitting use for a fascinating building.
Back when the government cared about veterans. Nowdays they just care about money.
History. Maths! ARCHITECTURE!? This video has EVERYTHING.
The grand stairs at Stockholm City Hall, where the Nobel Banquet is held, has really shallow steps. It's designed so that elegant ladies, with their fancy dresses, look elegant and fancy walking down them.
Gender specific architecture just to make the ladies look pretty.
I've heard the architect had his wife test out modles of the different staircase designs so he was sure that the stairs would be perfect.
The stairs at.the Winchester Mystery House in California are shallow like this. They were also built in the Victorian Era for a woman who was only 4' 11" so the dress theory makes sense. On the other hand, the stairs in the Betsy Ross house are so steep that getting up them in modern clothing isnt easy, I have no idea how a woman in a full length gown did it every day.
People literally died on those tall, narrow stairs. Imagine you're a servant with your skirts, AND your arms are full because they better be full because you're working and you gotta stay busy. You can't see your feet, or the steps, and you can't hold up the skirts or onto the balustrade. Like, the reason why there were people doing mathematic equations on stair dimensions was because it became a minor public health crisis in England.
@@Levacque agreed. I recently discovered an ancestor that fell down the steep stairs in her uncles general store and spent the next couple of years crippled, only walking by holding on the back of a chair and pushing it around like a walker, until she died around 1918 at about age 40.
There were other calculations for staircase design in the Winchester House, for example, to confuse the ghosts that followed her around. But that's another story.
@@abyrupus True, there were odd staircases to confuse the spirits Mrs. Winchester believed were following her. However, there were also mostly normal ones made for her use that had super shallow steps.
Friends and I rented a tiny old home for a weekend and the stairs to the second floor were closer to a ladder. It was a devilish time trying to lug my big weekender bag up, and even worse trying to get it back down without toppling all the way to the bottom.
she obveously had so much fun going down the stairs in that dress
Architect here. There are indeed calculations made when designing this aspect of a staircase. They take into consideration the length of a person’s stride. But it’s based on a man’s proportions usually, so this is refreshing. You can safely go up or down stairs if all of the steps are the same height and width. Otherwise it can get tricky. 1 cm off and people start stumbling. 😂
Comment: the most comfortable stairs I’ve ever climbed are in the paimio hospital designed by Aalto, in Finland. They’re soooooooo easy to climb for patients. Beautiful.
its interesting because i always think of older staircases as steeper, though i guess its most likely a class thing
It's very much about class. Compare the different staircases for guests and for servants in an old manor and it's very apparent! This staircase is in a very fancy venue used by royalty so it gets the most luxurious steps. Any fancier and it would be a ramp lol.
@@SAOS451316 I used to live in a large house that was built in 1899 which was large enough to have a couple of rooms in the attic for servants. The ground and 1st floor stairs (apart from the bannister) were exactly like the ones in this vid but the cellar and attic stairs were like what you get in a mill worker's terrace in the same town.
Parents house is a semi detached half of a grand old farmhouse dating back to 1666, and our neighbours have a pidley little staircase for the servants, whereas we have a grand wide staircase you to sweep down in your ball gown and catch a coach into town.
We also found a rack of bells in the loft while fitting insulation which you could ring for servants, and our "shed" is a two-storey bothey with room for pigs downstairs and farm labourers upstairs.
Makes me think of horse stairs... I spent a lot of time in the cavalry so I used to walk them a lot, just short and wide enough that a person can't take a propper step.
They made stairs for horses?
@@ellengrace4609 Makes it easier to get over those hurdles.
@@ellengrace4609yep, or more specifically, they made stairs for important men who wanted to ride their horse somewhere that horses probably shouldn't go, or just in the streets of very hilly towns 😂 they're pretty neat, they have a low rise and a very wide/deep step, and normally the wide step is also sloped very gently so that you gain a little extra height without making it hard for the horses.
@@Levacque interesting! Thanks for the reply! 😁
As an interior designer who spends a lot of time calculating stairs .. yes. I love it. No notes!
I thought of a stair, no step is the same height and some are loose from time to time, but not always. I would call them " Darwins Curse" 😂
I was at Goethe's House in Weimar Germany. That man had insanely shallow steps on his stairs. To be fair though, he rented the place. It was built around 70 years before he moved in if I remember correctly
even the most specific and random details about England's history you can make it sounds so interesting!!
i'm not even from a english speaking country and i want to learn more 😂😂
The fanciful walk was the best
On an opposite note, I remember the Coliseum steps being extra high as a kid. It might just have been me being a child, but my house stairs were and are standard-issue stairs, and I felt the difference.
I wonder if steps actually did use to be higher (and more inconvenient) a millennium or two ago.
For indoors most likely not as high because the ones that can afford to have multi-floor buildings are rich ones and they wont like inconvenient staircases.
For Colosseum i would guess because people rarely come into the building (only during events) so a minor inconvenience is not really an issue. On the other hand defense structures like castle walls and forts have very uncomfy stairs of different heights and maybe even shapes (im not very into it so cmiiw) so when invaders come in they arent used to it and might stumble or need to pay attention to their feet while also fighting against the defenders. The defenders are used to the stairs by patrolling their own place, so while its uncomfy for them its not a disadvantage.
The ones at the Coliseum were probably built extra steep to match with the seating slope, set so people could see. Just like in a modern theater or stadium. In addition, the stairs are probably worn.
Hi J, love your channel! I noticed that the stairs next to Scarborough's cliff lift were weirdly shallow, (It's a weird thing for me to remember, haven't been there in years) they were easy to go down, but a pain in the neck to go up, being used to modern standard step height. This totally would explain it, I expect people would likely have walked down, then taken the lift back up afterwards. The Scarborough Grand Hotel is at the top, it was built in a V-shape in honour of queen Victoria (I don't know if she ever visited) but the shallow steps would definitely make sense for long skirts!
Ohh that's the same in the Isle of Wight. Interesting!
I read a book that featured a detail that's apparently accurate to medieval Irish castles: they'd sometimes have stairs of all different heights within a single staircase so people who lived there and used the stairs every single day were just used to them and could go up and down normally but invaders would be massively slowed down tripping on them the whole time and be put at a major disadvantage for storming the castles.
There used to be a department store one town over that had the nicest stairs to climb. They were not fatiguing to climb, at all, even after the three flights from bottom to top. They were also wide enough to allow large pieces of furniture to be manœuvered through the landings.
These steps are also a lot easier to climb for folk with certain kinds of mobility issues! An unintended benefit.
take a look at steps in most of prague, also quite shallow
I find it really cool where you not only talk about history, but you live a lot of it too by having the fashion of some of that history.
It’s also helpful if you’re elderly with mobility issues and it causes you to take smaller steps which creates a graceful floating effect in big floor length skirts
That Dress pass by transition was awesome!
as someone who wears really long skirts and has mobility and joint issues, low wide stairs have always been my favourites! much less strain to climb
It’s so nice to see the production quality go up and I hope we get more positive changes in the future
You have achieved peak thumbnail.
You're so fabulously dramatic. Love the efforts you put into your videos.
Learning about architecture designed to accommodate fashion was my favorite part of my History of Costume class. It was fascinating!
That was an interesting take on stairs! I know that the height and width of steps should have some sensible relation for the stair to be "comfortably walked" (even in pants), and if it is too far off the stairs become bad. The worst I've encountered are the outdoor stairs at the Communications Systems Lab at Lancaster University, it was unwalkable.
I lived in an Victorian era house from age 2 till 8. It had 2 staircases. One directly above the other. And while made of polished wood the steps were just as shallow. They were also about 7 feet wide. And the sliding races we had on rainy days kept us occupied for hours. Loved that house even though it was cold and damp.
stairs as shallow and wide as these are so lovely. They make climbing them so easy. No strain on the thighs.
That's really helpful, when stationed in Germany we were often confused when touring historic places. Makes so much more sense now
It's very rare to see someone ascend and descend stairs with such grace
Vienna has an obsession with shallow staircases. Many of the underground stations have them.
As an architect I am now obsessed with this and will be spiraling into research on more examples of this
As a disabled person, I LOVE low stairs.
Wayyyy less stress on your knees!
That dress looks beautiful on you as well!!! Those stairs look very comfortable to walk up as well
Staircases are their own subject and one could study it their entire life. Just like entrances. Roofs. Balconies. I love it!
I love when different pieces of culture influence each other like this, and there it is for us to see.
That makes sense. It's really cool that skirts were factored in.
The stairs in Goethe's house in Weimar quite narrow as well. He was involved in the design process of his house and he was very particular about the stairs. He wanted them to be very comfortable to climb so visitors wouldn't be exhausted.
I really appreciate the idea. The stairs are actually pretty comfortable to climb. I wish more stairs were designed with this in mind. But I guess comfortable stairs probably take up more space.
I'm a UX UI design student And part of our homework every week is finding something with good or bad design to present. Found my design for the week. It's actually really ingenious.
During a tour at the Winchester house, the guide said that Sarah, quite short at only 4'10", had low rise stairs were put in to help her with her arthritis. Being on the shorter side with joint problems, I found myself wishing all stairs were like that.
I work at a travel agency, mostly dealing with Japanese tourists. There were occasions that the operator in Japan demanding the height of the tour buses’ stairs, which is understandable since there are a lot of elderly people joining these tours in Japan, these should be considered. I remember the height of the bathtub and the depth inside it was asked. Although it can be time-consuming and frustrating, for the reason above, really understandable.
i've never seen someone so happy to use a staircase
At The Getty in LA, the big outdoor area leading into the main building has shallow steps.
When I visited, I was using a cane, and those steps were so helpful. They also felt welcoming.
Ooooo this is so strange. I work there backstage XD
I work at an old hall, the staircase starts huge and gets progressively smaller as it goes up, they used to tell people it was so dresses flowed out behind you but in fact it was to make the staircase look slightly bigger and more impressive.
You look lovely in the gown, floating on the stairs. Bravo.
As someone who’s short with a bad knee, shallow steps are a blessing!!!
ADORE the fabric on the stairs. 😍
The main stair in the Blue Hall at Stockholm City Hall is also designed in a way that everyone descending would look beautiful.
If you can; watch the banquet of the Nobel prize event on December 10th when all royals, laureates and politicians enter the hall. It’s beautiful!
Ahhhhh. Thanks for explaining Texas architecture. Tiny steps everywhere for old buildings and parks.
Short steps are also really useful if you're in a full set of armour
As a Renaissance Festival worker in the US, I can say this would definitely be helpful at events we plan!
In this era of pants, I find shallower steps actually make my legs more tired. But I can see how it would help in that era, as you demonstrated.
Those steps look so soft and squishy.
I actually love that. Short steps make a lot of sense to me.
As someone dealing with MS, I always appreciate shallow steps in historical buildings
The Revolutionary War Era houses on the east coast of the US frequently have stairs like these as well
I love old buildings since I usually wear long skirts. I love flouncing down stairs with a skirt.
That gown and cape are AMAZING!!!!!
The Winchester Mystery House has steps even lower & wider throughout the mansion. Sarah Winchester was very small in stature & had these built. I love those steps so much. They were the easiest I’d ever climbed & I felt so stable & secure on the larger platform of each step. They’re great!
Love your boots in the beginning! That whole first outfit is awesome.
Thank you so much for years of informative and interesting content !
Architects are always thinking one step ahead
My high school had short steps in the stairwells at one end of the building. Turns out, when it was first built, it housed all grades from kindergarten through 12th and the rooms used for kindergarten and the lower grades were nearest the stairwells with short steps.
This one page makes me want to visit England SO much. LOL.
Gosh i love stairs like these, they always make it so much easier to walk up (im disabled)
Once again you display an impressive commitment to costuming.
The recessed bottoms of the risers make a beautiful step, you don’t see them anymore.
I would imagine the ability to maintain a "pleasing" deportment played a huge role too?
I went to a school where the main building was an 1880 mansion. There were two staircases- a main stair, with shallow steps like this, and the servant's stair, which had really high steps by modern standards to save space.
I love when they think of the users when building the stairs.
Literally was at a library today, and it had really shallow steps and just put it down to the building “being old” but now I know why it “being old” equates to it having shallow steps!
My old house had this kind of stairs. Which was really helpful when I wore heels
That transition!!!!
On a rough day, the vicarious happiness I experience through your enjoyment of wearing historical garb in an historical situation elucidating on the history thereof... maybe it leads to further research on my part, or maybe just a smile, but your content is always welcome and welcomed.
The most useful thing learned about stairs is that the height of the riser multiplied by the number of steps between each floor gives you the height between floors and you can use that to estimate the height of the building to the top floor.
Reminds me of the short staircase steps in the Winchester Mansion.
Those were so short because old lady Winchester had arthritis and couldn't step up very high at all.
i once went on a trip with my old orchestra, the place where we practiced was on the upper floors of an old estate house, i tripped so much
It's 5 AM in Israel, and I'm having my first coffee before work. And I really love your content! Thank you!
in Newport, Rhode Island there is a Gilded Age Mansion called the Breakers that was built by the Vanderbilts. The Grand Staircase is the opposite of this. The stairs are very tall and deep. So, when the woman of the home walks down the stairs to make an entrance, it looks like she glides.
I’ve been abstaining from posting this due to wanting to keep it civil, but holy crap are you just freaking adorable!
We stayed at an apartment building opposite Little Queens in Lyndhurst. Some parts of the building are several hundred years old, showing very low, widened doors to accommodate the wide 17th century pannier bustles. So interesting!
Actually my public library has large trim along the guard rail that extends about 4-5” above the stairs. I asked about it one day and apparently the original purpose was to prevent people looking up a lady’s skirt as she went up the stairs.
As someone who grew up with dogs, I really appreciate shallow stairs. Stairs are not designed for dogs. They're designed for humans. As a result, running up and down the stairs can hurt a dog's back as they age. The steeper the angle, the harder it is on them. Shallow steps allow dogs to more comfortably climb stairs.
I always wondered why old houses have such sharp inclines
Reminds me of the stairs in the Winchester house in the US. Very shallow steps that switched back multiple times as a mobility solution for an elderly woman.
It's amazing how influential a Queen can be, long after their time. I've decided to have a go at being one myself, so we'll see how that pans out...
I was recently trying to walk around with multiple underskirts and boots and realized that bussles and hoop skirts give more room for the boots to move around and not get tangled up in the dress.
I used to lay block stairs. The amount of regulations on treads and risers sizes is crazy compared to any other part of house construction