To combine the unity of a central plan with the direction a church needs, plan the space as an oval, set across the axis to widen the view of the altar, or along it to lead the eye towards it.
The imperial stair
Make the stair of a palace a processional space: one broad flight rising to a landing, then turning back in two flights either side to arrive at the principal floor beneath a single great vault.
Medieval and early Renaissance stairs were often cramped and tucked away. From the late sixteenth century, and above all in the Baroque palaces of Italy, Spain, Austria and Germany, the stair became the centrepiece of the building, where visitors were received and where the owner’s rank was displayed. The imperial type, with a central flight dividing into two, gives a symmetrical ascent and, at the landing, a turn that reveals the whole space. At Würzburg Neumann covered the stair hall with a single vault some 30 m long, which Tiepolo painted in 1752–53.
Related rules
Let the wall of a façade curve in plan (concave, convex, concave) so that the front answers the street, the light and the space within, and the order bends with it.
Proportion every step so that twice its height plus its depth equals the length of a natural pace on the level: two feet, or 24 pouces.
2 r + g = 24 pouces ≈ 65 cm (modern practice: 60–66 cm)
Make the parterre oblong rather than square, since figures somewhat oblong look better on the ground than square ones; later practice made it as broad as the front of the house and about twice as long.
parterre oblong; later practice: width ≈ house front, length ≈ 2 × width
Proportion the width of an allée to its length: a walk of about 100 toises (some 200 m) should be 5 or 6 toises wide, one of 200 toises 7 or 8, and so on, so that a long walk does not seem to narrow to a slot in the distance.
100 toises long → 5–6 wide · 200 → 7–8 · 300 → 9–10 · 400 → 10–12 (1 toise ≈ 1.95 m)
Organise the whole garden on one axis from the centre of the house to the horizon; lay out the parts symmetrically about it, and use water, slopes and hidden changes of level so that the view along it reveals the garden by stages.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The imperial stair”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/imperial-stair. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.