Stairway to nowhere is a complete set of teaching resources designed around an interesting and unusual photograph with activities to activate your students' higher level critical thinking skills. What is more interesting to know is that this one of a kind structure is an integral part of one of the USA’s biggest private real estate development, the Hudson Yards. The Hudson Yard comprises an amalgamation of high-end residences, office space, fine dine restaurants, retail outlets, a cultural centre, The Shed, and a public school. While the Fontainebleau has been remodeled and transformed in the decades since Lapidus’ original design, his impact is undeniable – both the hotel and his designs as a whole have become a symbol of the city of Miami and live on to this day. The house is a labyrinth of approximately 160 rooms and bizarre features such as stairs that lead nowhere, doors that open onto walls, columns that are installed upside down and chimneys that don't reach the ceiling. That would be because the bottom portion of the tower is very heavy and very strong. From there, the railing walls, functioning as light but sturdy structural beams intended to resist forces acting on the structure, including gravity, and keep it stable, extend out and into the air. They prevent the peculiar structure from dangerously sagging or tipping.

Vlooybergtoren – Tielt-Winge, Belgium - Atlas Obscura Vlooybergtoren – Tielt-Winge, Belgium - Atlas Obscura

Most of us want to get home construction over as soon as possible. We worry about the expense and complain about the inconvenience. But for Sarah Winchester, construction was a way of life. For 38 years, she had construction going 24 hours a day at her home in San Jose, Calif. But what of these doors and stairs to nowhere? Doors may open onto walls, or in the case of a second story door, to the outside, resulting in a big fall for anyone who might try to exit that way. A closet door in the second floor séance room opens onto a first-floor sink several feet below. The stairs to nowhere are pretty much what they sound like: Stairs go up until they reach the ceiling, and then they just stop.TheVlooybergtoren gained popularity after being shown on the Belgian TV show Callboys, which shot a few scenes at the staircase in 2016 and 2019. To be fair, one has to concede that Vessel has at least a few positive aspects: the views from atop the piece are impressive; it feels vaguely unsafe, particularly when it’s windy, which is kind of fun; and the staffers working to manage its huge line are friendly and unflappable. Each employee wears apparel emblazoned with a little outline of Vessel, which has been likened to a wastebasket, a shawarma meat cone, and honeycomb. For me, it most resembles one of those sets in sci-fi films where members of an alien tribunal gaze down on humans and condemn them to work in salt mines on some distant planet. How is it as an actual aesthetic experience? Very weird, and quite unpleasant, I am happy to report. Looking up from its cramped ground floor, where a panel glows bright blue (a bit like that strange orb President Trump and company touched in Saudi Arabia), you see row after row of the copper-plated steel that lines the staircases, resembling a high-end corporate headquarters or shopping center. It appears to have been specifically designed to induce intense amounts of dread and alienation. The house had grown in size, balooming into a seven story mansion by 1906, but the top three floors collapsed after the earthquake. Some other famous numbers associated with the house include its 47 fireplaces, 17 chimneys, two basements, six kitchens, 10,000 window panes and 467 doorways [source: Winchester Mystery House]. Despite these impressive numbers, there are only two mirrors; Mrs. Winchester thought that ghosts were afraid of their own reflection [source: Taylor]. Strangetastic.com. "Mystery House Commentary." (March 26, 2008) http://strangetastic.com/category/wmh/

Stairway to nowhere (higher level) | TeachingEnglish Stairway to nowhere (higher level) | TeachingEnglish

Stephen Ross, chairman of Hudson Yards developer Related Companies, added: ‘An extraordinary amount of work by artisans and craftsmen has gone into reaching this day and we are excited to invite New Yorkers and visitors alike to watch its rise over the upcoming months. Stairs aren’t just a functional way to get from one place to another as far as contemporary artist Rachel Whiteread is concerned. She takes casts of industrial staircases and turns them into hulking white abstracted sculpture, giving the negative space a physical presence. Olafur Eliasson’s Courtyard StairwayIt’s fun to hate from afar, but what do visitors have to say about it? Here’s a report from Andrew Russeth of Art News: Heartbroken from the deaths of her infant daughter and her husband, Sarah Winchester consulted a medium who told her that her family was cursed, as her husband was the heir of the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. The medium told her that the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her, and the only way to appease them was to build a house for as long as she lived.

To Nowhere: When Creepypasta Becomes Urban Legend Stairs To Nowhere: When Creepypasta Becomes Urban Legend

Over the past couple years, when I happened to be in the neighborhood, I looked at the monstrosity under construction with a mixture of disgust and horrified glee, in awe that so much money was being spent to build something so blithely tone deaf and, at the same time, so utterly banal—a huge network of staircases leading to nowhere. I know I am not alone in that feeling. Vessel has been very fun to hate from afar. And so, heading over to Hudson Yards this past Saturday, I was quite excited to finally set foot on the beast and walk some of its roughly 2,500 steps. Taylor, Troy. "The Winchester Mystery House." Ghosts of the Prairie. (March 26, 2008) http://www.prairieghosts.com/winchester.html The wider mixed-use Hudson Yards will deliver about 1,180,000m 2 of development in 16 skyscrapers, including a new tower by Foster + Partners.Our small-group adventures are inspired by our Atlas of the world's most fascinating places, the stories behind them, and the people who bring them to life. Update July 2018: The tower has recently been damaged by an explosion caused by vandals. The base structure wasn’t damaged, so city council is looking to improve the tower. There are plans to make it even higher, and it’s said they may construct a new tower somewhere in 2019. Mrs. Winchester also had an obsession with the number "13." Many things installed in the home feature 13 of something: 13 window panes, 13 wall panels, 13 sections of flooring, 13 stairs in each staircase. There are 13 bathrooms, sinks have 13 drain holes and the séance room has 13 coat hooks. The useless stairs might have a simple explanation; the stairs were likely a part of the original house that Mrs. Winchester bought, and when she started adding on to the home, she covered up the stairs. Whether it was accidentally or on purpose, Mrs. Winchester usually covered up her mistakes by just continuing to build around them. Because she had no master plan for the house, her architectural ideas didn't always work out. Since she had no deadline for completion, she'd either tear down the mistake or cover it up with something else.