The people holding the capacity of the structure has been limited to only 700 at any given point of time. I was spending a few days in San Francisco, and I kept seeing advertisements for the Winchester Mystery House. There are plans to make it even higher, and it’s said they may construct a new tower somewhere in 2019. She takes casts of industrial staircases and turns them into hulking white abstracted sculpture, giving the negative space a physical presence.

Stairway to Nowhere: On the Pleasure of Hating Thomas Stairway to Nowhere: On the Pleasure of Hating Thomas

Since she had no deadline for completion, she'd either tear down the mistake or cover it up with something else. The steel of the walls is galvanized to prevent corrosion and covered with weathering steel to protect it from the elements.

The work of climbing is supposed to be the reward, since there’s nothing at the top but a view of the Hudson Yards complex, or, if you turn inward, a view of all the other climbers still making their way up. The sculpture, which is made of steel and is over 30 feet tall, is a staircase in the shape of a double helix. In 1671, the French chef François Vatel, distraught because the seafood course at a 2,000-person banquet for Louis XIV had been delayed, killed himself. 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.

Image bank: Stairway to nowhere (lower level) - TeachingEnglish Image bank: Stairway to nowhere (lower level) - TeachingEnglish

Umschreibung” is in fact not a staircase at all, but an ominous sculpture by Danish artist Olafur Eliasson. Architect Morris Lapidus (1902-2001) greatly influenced and even defined the MiMo style in the 1950s and 60s, infusing neo-baroque architectural elements into his designs. A relic of dated 2000s thinking, nearly devoid of urban design, it declines to blend into the city grid.This was no ordinary construction job, though; the house is an oddball labyrinth of rooms that at one point reached seven stories.