RAMPOUX (Lot) - Église Saint-Pierre-ès-Liens-002

A staircase tower or stair tower (german: Treppenturm, also ''Stiegenturm'' or ''Wendelstein'') is a

tower A tower is a tall Nonbuilding structure, structure, taller than it is wide, often by a significant factor. Towers are distinguished from guyed mast, masts by their lack of guy-wires and are therefore, along with tall buildings, self-supporting ...

-like wing of a building with a circular or

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two toge ...

al plan that contains a stairwell, usually a helical staircase.

History

Only a few examples of staircase towers have survived from ancient times (e.g. on the Imperial Baths in Trier); staircases were often superfluous on the only single-storey buildings or were built into the outer walls of buildings that were often several feet thick. This tradition continued in the keeps (''

donjon A keep (from the Middle English ''kype'') is a type of fortified tower built within castles during the Middle Ages by European nobility. Scholars have debated the scope of the word ''keep'', but usually consider it to refer to large towers in ...

s''), churches and castles of the early and high Middle Ages; and this situation only changed with the increasing construction of purpose-built and generally rather undecorated staircase towers of the High and Late Middle Ages ( Romanesque and

Gothic architecture Gothic architecture (or pointed architecture) is an architectural style that was prevalent in Europe from the late 12th to the 16th century, during the High and Late Middle Ages, surviving into the 17th and 18th centuries in some areas. It e ...

styles). Since the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ideas ...

period, staircase towers were markedly more decorative and representative of status. Stairs were now rarely hidden or built externally, but there were both artistically designed, curved and straight-running staircases inside the building with ornate ceilings and railings (e. g.

Château de Chambord The Château de Chambord () in Chambord, Centre-Val de Loire, France, is one of the most recognisable châteaux in the world because of its very distinctive French Renaissance architecture which blends traditional French medieval forms with cla ...

Palazzo Barberini The Palazzo Barberini ( en, Barberini Palace) is a 17th-century palace in Rome, facing the Piazza Barberini in Rione Trevi. Today, it houses the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, the main national collection of older paintings in Rome. History ...

and

Château d'Azay-le-Rideau The Château d'Azay-le-Rideau () is located in the town of Azay-le-Rideau in the French département of Indre-et-Loire. Built between 1518 and 1527, this château is considered one of the foremost examples of early French renaissance architecture. ...

or Château de Chenonceau). With the increasing construction of straight staircases with intermediate landings (the modern stairwells) separate staircase towers became gradually rarer.

Examples

;France * Former abbey church of Saint-Menoux *

Château de Blois A château (; plural: châteaux) is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor, or a fine country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally, and still most frequently, in French-speaking regions. Nowaday ...

, Loire region *

Château de Tanlay The Château de Tanlay at Tanlay (Yonne) is a French château built in Burgundy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, famous for its beauty and the setting. The walls are of limestone under tall sloping slate roofs ''à la française' ...

, département of

Yonne Yonne () is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in France. It is named after the river Yonne, which flows through it, in the country's north-central part. One of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté's eight constituent departments, it is lo ...

;Germany *

Albrechtsburg The Albrechtsburg is a Late Gothic and early Renaissance castle erected from 1471 till about 1495. It is located in the town centre of Meissen in the German state of Saxony. It is situated on a hill above the river Elbe, adjacent to the Meissen ...

Meißen Meissen (in German orthography: ''Meißen'', ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrech ...

Lutherhaus The Lutherhaus is a writer's house museum in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, Germany. Originally built in 1504 as part of the University of Wittenberg, the building was the home of Martin Luther for most of his adult life and a significant location in t ...

Wittenberg Wittenberg ( , ; Low Saxon language, Low Saxon: ''Wittenbarg''; meaning ''White Mountain''; officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg (''Luther City Wittenberg'')), is the fourth largest town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. Wittenberg is situated on the Ri ...

* Latscha Building,

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

Ostend Ostend ( nl, Oostende, ; french: link=no, Ostende ; german: link=no, Ostende ; vls, Ostende) is a coastal city and municipality, located in the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It comprises the boroughs of Mariakerk ...

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...

Dresden Castle Dresden Castle or Royal Palace (german: Dresdner Residenzschloss or ) is one of the oldest buildings in Dresden, Germany. For almost 400 years, it was the residence of the electors (1547–1806) and List of rulers of Saxony, kings (1806–1918) o ...

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

* Bertholdsburg Castle,

Schleusingen Schleusingen is a town in the district of Hildburghausen, in Thuringia, Germany. It is situated 10 km north of Hildburghausen, and 12 km southeast of Suhl. Geography The town of Schleusingen in the Henneberger Land got its name from ...

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

* Hartenfels Palace,

Torgau Torgau () is a town on the banks of the Elbe in northwestern Saxony, Germany. It is the capital of the district Nordsachsen. Outside Germany, the town is best known as where on 25 April 1945, the United States and Soviet Armies forces first ...

Schloss Johannisburg Schloss Johannisburg is a schloss in the town of Aschaffenburg, in Franconia in the state of Bavaria, Germany. It was erected between 1605 and 1614 by the architect for Johann Schweikhard von Kronberg, Prince Bishop of Mainz. Until German medi ...

Aschaffenburg Aschaffenburg (; South Franconian: ''Aschebersch'') is a town in northwest Bavaria, Germany. The town of Aschaffenburg is not part of the district of Aschaffenburg, but is its administrative seat. Aschaffenburg belonged to the Archbishopric ...

Franconia Franconia (german: Franken, ; Franconian dialect: ''Franggn'' ; bar, Frankn) is a region of Germany, characterised by its culture and Franconian dialect (German: ''Fränkisch''). The three administrative regions of Lower, Middle and Upper Fr ...

* Schloss Köthen (

Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt (german: Sachsen-Anhalt ; nds, Sassen-Anholt) is a state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.18 million inhabitants, making it the ...

) * Weitersroda Castle,

Hildburghausen Hildburghausen (IPA adapted from: ) is a town in Thuringia in central Germany, capital of the district Hildburghausen. Geography It is situated in the Franconian part of Thuringia south of the Thuringian Forest, in the valley of the Werra river ...

Wilhelmsburg Castle The Wilhelmsburg Castle in the city of Schmalkalden was a secondary residence of the Landgraviate of Hesse, Landgraves of Hesse. It is one of the most important Renaissance buildings in central Germany, which has experienced no structural changes ...

Schmalkalden Schmalkalden () is a town in the Schmalkalden-Meiningen district, in the southwest of the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is on the southern slope of the Thuringian Forest at the Schmalkalde river, a tributary to the Werra. , the town had a popula ...

;Ireland *

Reeves Castle Reeves Castle is a 14th-century tower house (castle) located in County Kildare, Ireland. On the Record of Monuments and Places it bears the codes ''KD015-001'' (enclosure) and ''KD015-002'' (tower house). Location Reeves Castle is about north ...

, County Kildare

References

External links

* Stairs Stairways Towers Rooms Architectural elements Architectural terminology {{Architecturalelement-stub

History

Examples

See also

References

Further reading

External links