Proportion and Comfort

The notion of comfort, i.e. that of designing staircases proportionate to the human body which were consequently 'very comfortable', to quote Palladio, was introduced during the Renaissance, which began symbolically with the discovery of Vitruvius' treatise. His obsession with the 'body' (emendatum corpus architecturae), and the introduction of the idea the architectural elements should be proportionate to the human body, also translated to a need to find the ideal proportion between a step and its riser. The diagram below highlights the great difference, measured in terms of percentage incline, between Renaissance stairs (following Vitruvian principles and treatises of Leon Battista Alberti and Palladio) and medieval an Gothic stairs. Yet these were just as steep as the first Venetian stairs built in the early Renaissance during the process of 'internalising' staircases. The diagram includes the elevation of a staircase designed by Carlo Scarpa for Scatturin, in which efficiency trumps any consideration of proportion.

Page 189 of a brilliant "Must Have Book".
Julia Foscari, with a Forword by Rem Koolhaas - Elements of Venice, 2014 Lars Müller Publishers
(Developed as a research project parallel to FUNDAMENTALS - 14th Venice Architecture Biennale)