The staircase dates back to the very beginning of architectural history. Virtually every significant building from the ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia to the present day; has not only contained one or more staircases; but has celebrated them. For such an apparently simple part of a building they have been made in a bewildering variety of forms and from a wide range of materials. Every age has sought to out-perform the previous to produce ever more spectacular and gravity-defying designs.Staircases: History; Repair and Conservation is the first major reference volume devoted entirely to the understanding of staircases and the issues surrounding their repair and conservation. Each chapter has been especially written by experts in their respective fields. The book is essential reading for professionals and anyone with an interest in staircases. It deals with the history; dating; archaeology; surveying and recording; engineering; curating; repair and conservation of the staircase in a single volume. No other book offers such a wide range of detail.The book is divided into three parts:Part 1 covers the history; development; identification and dating of staircases; providing detailed drawings and photographs and an introduction to the scientific techniques available to enable the accurate dating of staircases.Part 2 covers the design; engineering and maintenance of the staircase; giving a clear guide to the latest research into the design of safe staircases and their structural stability. Part 3 focuses on the materials commonly used to make stairs; detailing the appropriate techniques for their conservation and repair.The result is a comprehensive study encompassing considerable and far reaching research which aims to inform our understanding and advance the scholarship of the subject for years to come.
#4513215 in eBooks 2013-11-05 2013-11-05File Name: B00GHJLCJG
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Wonderful play overlooked here in the StatesBy Maggie DouglasWonderful play overlooked here in the States; I think. An amazing use of language and character. Id like to see it done here on the stage.6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. A beautiful play about a Scottish womans moral awakening.By A CustomerScottish dramatist David Harrowers KNIVES IN HENS is an eerie and startling play that explores with conviction and an almost off-hand surrealism the connection between language and the world one inhabits through it.Focusing on a trio of characters in a God-fearing rural community; Harrower paints a stark and coarsely poetic portrait of what happens when one begins to question the very ground on which one walks. Specifically; Harrower centers his attention on a character simply named Young Woman; whose naive sense of the world and her own impulses is eroded throughout the progression of the play; as she discovers the power of language. her own sexuality and the strength of her imagination.A blindly devoted wife living in a private linguistic and metaphorical world informed by a sheltered upbringing in a pre-industrial village in an unidentified country (although the rhythms of rural Scottish speech color the text); Young Woman ventures outside her field one day to! have her grain milled by a local hated figure of the Miller Gilbert Horn while her husband Pony William tends to a pregnant horse.Young Womans encounter with Gilbert Horn serves as the catalyst for her awakening. He provokes her and stirs in her a desire to give expression to her thoughts through the act of writing them down; something she fears to do because she believes writing is sinful. To write; she believes; is to defy God; since God is the one who gives an individual her thoughts and to claim such thoughts as ones own; to voice them; is blasphemy.As the Young Womans relationship with her husband becomes more and more strained; Gilbert Horn begins to enter her sexual dreams until she feels she must act upon them. Although it may seem beyond cliche at this point to once again have a woman discover the power of her sexuality; of her body; through a man; Harrower manages to make the Young Womans transformation seem novel and surprising.By bringing in an elemen! t of the supernatural; Harrower removes the play from its s! ecular framework and places it in a curiously pagan; ritualized world where Gilbert Horb can indeed be a ghost and sorceror as well as a miller straight out of Eliots MILL ON THE FLOSS.A bleak; abrupt soundscape of words hurled; then barely uttered for fear of what they would do; KNIVES IN HENS is a powerful play built on a fragile; but elegant collage of 24 scenes that examine the disjunctive relationship between language and identity; creation and authorship; and the manner in which inexpressible feelings can sometimes conjure a reality more profoundly disturbing than the quotidian world will allow.2 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Magically lyrical.By A CustomerHarrower deftly enables the stage to transform into a moving poem. This is a not only a beautiful play but a stunning piece of literature. A recommended read for anyone who appreciates a finely crafted play.