Struttura e forma: le superfici voltate nelle scale aperte napoletane

Vaulted stairs in Neapolitan residential architecture in the 18th century, constitute a very interesting architectural system where each element contributes to the definition of an unique space, created on the close interrelation of shape and structure: the retaining structure generates the pattern and through its geometry gives sense to a composition where architectural and structural functions converge in a single design. Vaulted spaces, marked by arches with different profile, inclined surfaces and horizontal planes, characterize a dynamic space determined by different views, obtained while rising to the top, and resulting by the intersection of formal and structural elements that materialize a balanced system of forces and masses, which is fruit of knowledge experienced and gained trough time. The vaulted staircase is the focal point in the whole composition of Neapolitan residential architecture: is a filter space between public and private area, end of a visual perspective that from the outside leads through the entrance hall and until the courtyard. The staircase is a sort of double-sided volume, which underlines its weightlessness and transparency by multiple openings on its facades and determines an osmotic relationship between the spaces that apparently divides. The large range of samples given in Naples led to a classification, according to the types of the plan, of the geometry and of the structure and studying the relations between each element into the whole composition in which individual arrangements confer attribute to quality to the space.