Stair of the Week: The Well of Chand Baori
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 12. 2.08
The stepwell at Chand Baori, India, is a hundred feet deep and has 3500 steps. Legend says that it has so many steps to make it impossible for someone to retrieve a coin if it is dropped into the well.
It has a certain Escher-like quality.
Wikipedia writes that
Stepwells, also called bawdi (Hindi: बावड़ी) or baoli (Hindi:बावली), are in essence wells in which the water can be reached by descending a set of steps. They may be covered and protected, and are often of architectural significance. It can be multi-storied also in which a bullock turns the water wheel ("Rehant") to raise the water in the well to the first or second floor.All forms of the stepwell may be considered to be particular examples of the many types of storage and irrigation tanks that were developed in India, mainly to cope with seasonal fluctuations in water availability. A basic difference between stepwells on the one hand, and tanks and wells on the other, was to make it easier for people to reach the ground water, and to maintain and manage the well.
From Oddity Central) via Weburbanist
Other stairs of the week:
Stair of the Week: Clayton St House by Mork-Ulnes Design
Stair of the Week: The Prefabs at Home Delivery
Stair of the Week: Folded Stair by Kevin Low
Alternating Tread Stairs: A Roundup
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i would never dream of dropping a coin in the well and then going down to get it back but I think it would make a great stair stepper machine for the work out enthusiast.
the water doenst look like the cleanest to drink. it look more like an algea pool, mabey its to make algea bio-deisel, if only...
Yay! Eutrophied water that is of too poor quality to drink!
"Legend says that it has so many steps to make it impossible for someone to retrieve a coin if it is dropped into the well." That so called "legend" was not worth printing. That is more of a school ground joke... Any other guesses why such an architectural marvel was built around this well?
LA: yes, there are lots of people in India and this way lots of them have access at the same time. the walls have to step back anyways so they might as well have such wonderful stairs built in. My thoughts....
So that's where that is -- they used it as a set in the movie The Fall
Cool stairs, but why is this on treehugger?
Maybe you should start a blog dedicated to stairs.