Abstract
Half of a symmetrical “Geometrical Stair” built in 1791 in the Delaware State House in Dover. This kind of graceful, freestanding stairway was known at the time in England but was rare in the New World. Constructed by John Howe and Griffith Coombe, the stairway connected a ground-floor courtroom to the House and Senate chambers on the upper story. Its elegance and craftmanship conveyed the Importance of the legislative spaces above, an implicitly superior location in the building. Photograph and commentary by Charles T. Goodsell, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
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