DETAIL AND DECORATION IN RESIDENTIAL ARCHITECTURE IN WARSAW IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 20TH CENTURY: DECOR OF STAIRS. OUTLINE OF TYPOLOGY AND EVOLUTION OF FORMS OF SELECTED ELEMENTS

JADWIGA ROGUSKA

The destruction of World War II resulted in the fact that many facades of Warsaw houses and tenements from the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the period of Historicism, Art Nouveau and Early Modernism, lost detail and decoration. The original decor survived inside buildings, particularly rich in the representative staircases of the main stairs.
The article presents the evolution of solutions, form of detail and decoration of main stairways. The research observation covered selected elements important for the artistic expression of representative staircases: stair balustrades, decoration of staircase ceilings and walls, gas niches and floors.
The most space was dedicated to iron and cast iron balustrades - durable elements, well preserved in all their diversity, which can be ordered typologically. Their large sample allows for an outline of evolution of forms following stylistic tendencies in architecture.
Balustrades serve as an example to tackle an important problem in the aesthetics of the end of 19th century – the opposition between pattern and individual form. This was demonstrated by the predominance in Warsaw, until the eighties of the 19th century, of cast iron balustrades and serial factory productions. Then, from the nineties of 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century, more individual forms of balustrades from refined iron, made in blacksmith and ironwork techniques, were popularised.