Newel stairs 

Karl Ballenberger made this pencil drawing of a newel stairs sometime in the first half of the 19th century. The image invites us to think about the role of architecture in shaping social experience. Here, the architectural drawing is itself an aesthetic object displayed in a museum, but its cultural value lies in its depiction of a functional space. The spiral staircase was a common feature in castles and cathedrals of the medieval period. The design of the stairs allowed for efficient use of space and it could easily be defended. In nineteenth-century Europe, the architectural past was often evoked to legitimize claims about national identity and social hierarchies. By studying architectural drawings in archives and libraries, we can understand more about how past societies organized themselves and made sense of their place in the world. The meaning of art always depends on its institutional context.