Common as they may be, great spiral staircases are always breathtaking. Perhaps it’s something about the way they juxtapose dramatic architectural beauty with a sense of danger — look down from the top of a really high one, and it’s impossible not to imagine falling right through the center of it (why yes, there are some Freudian implications to that fear). Munich-based photographer Michael Koller captures both the lovely and the disorienting aspects of spiral staircases in a series of images collected on his Instagram. As Koller told the Instagram blog, it’s the “different shapes and hypnotic depth” of each staircase that makes the photos so striking.
Photo credit: Michael Koller
Photo credit: Michael Koller
Photo credit: Michael Koller
Photo credit: Michael Koller
Photo credit: Michael Koller
Photo credit: Michael Koller
Photo credit: Michael Koller
Photo credit: Michael Koller
Photo credit: Michael Koller