ABSTRACT
Nothing was more beautiful in old houses than the staircases. Nothing is uglier, colder, more hostile, meaner, in today's apartment buildings. We should learn to live more on staircases. Cinematic scalalogy, if such a thing exists, could therefore be interpreted as the art of observing the interactions between humans and stairs through the medium of film. Mielke proposes a broad classification of German stairs and identifies three types: spiral, winding and straight – to which he also adds an exterior 'free' stair. Using stairs involves risks that are greater than walking on the level because the consequences of a fall are likely to be more serious. Also intriguing and counterintuitive is the little-known fact that spiral stairs are in fact safer: 'when people do trip on spiral or dog-leg stairs they are more likely to be able to break their fall against the walls or the balustrade before they have fallen very far'.
