The main stair in Frank Furness' Pennsylvania Academy
of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia (20) is too big in
relation to its immediate surroundings. It lands on a space
narrower than its width, and faces an opening narrower
than its width. Furthermore, the opening is bisected by a
post. But this stair is ceremonial and symbolic as well as
functional, and it relates to the hall immediately beyond the
opening, to the whole building, and to the great scale of
Broad Street outside. The outer thirds of Michelangelo's
stair in the Laurentian Library vestibule (21) are abruptly
chopped off and lead virtually nowhere: it is similarly wrong
in the relation of its size to its space, and yet right in relation
to the whole context of the spaces beyond