Photo via Architizer
Swiss artist duo Lang/Baumann have a thing for stairs. Actually, they have a thing for creating vertigo-inducing and heart-stuttering climbs: steps mount the concrete façade of a skyscraper, lead out the window and around the exterior corner of a 10-story building, and float on-high in a gold-plated European castle. Unlike other cases of staggeringly improbable architecture, Sabina Lang and Daniel Baumann's Beautiful Steps are not photo manipulations, but rather bona fide, full-sized structures, built and suspended in actual locations, like a castle-turned-museum in Trautenfels, Austria, or the Congress Centre in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland (above). The effect of each sculpture is something like a mildly frightening M.C. Escher print coming to life; the plain, white stairs themselves seem mundane, but become dream-like in the artists' absurdly dangerous application. See more works below.
↑ Floating stairs at the Trautenfels Castle in Austria, now a museum.
↑ Stairs lead out and around the turret at Trautenfels Castle.
Photos via Architizer
↑ An interior shot of the path; presumably, that door leads to the turret itself.
· Definitely Not Up To Code: Swiss Artists Delight In Impossible Staircases [Architizer]
· Lang Baumann: Beautiful Steps [Design Boom]
· 'Impossible Architecture' a Spectacular Defiance of Physics [Curbed National]
