I would argue that the escalator is not a synthetic stair, but the exact opposite - it removes the stair completely (if the stair is more than simply getting from point a to point b).
A synthetic limb is placed where a limb was removed completely, no?
It also does not create a synesthetic experience. What aspect of the stair are you looking at?
The stair does not represent a synthetic experience. The stair has always been an element on which, in general, you must pay some measure of attention to your footing. In the escalator came a new experience... 15 seconds in a shopper's life where he could/should now stop and look around because technology is watching his footing for him. The escalator constitutes a synthesized experience because it is a moment in life that would not occur without the intervention of man (created) and because it finds its components in the aether of past inventions. In other words, it is the coming together of pieces to accomplish the task of its conceptual beginning: the stair.
The stair is a precarious event in architecture, it is not a ladder and it is not a ramp. It sits in between. There are many beautiful changes in the history of the stair that would be worth investigating in that regard.
There are, indeed, many interesting occurrances of the stair in architectural history. However, I feel that the only important aspect of the stair to my design project right now is that it is a measure of human scale and movement. I can't use everything so I might as well stop once I have my head around something good.
From David Reed I take this concept as a central one: that through architecture I can create indications of human movement and activity.
From the material synthetics I take this: the concept of creating an assemblage of pieces to accomplish the task of an Other object.
From the stair element I take this: movement between two points accomplished by an object assemblage. It is the stair which shows the movement called for by David Reed. It is the stair that will be synthesized and its task accomplished by a conceived element.
So-- forgive my naivite-- but from the idea of the stair to the elevator you realized that in a sense, this was a synthetic jump? Is this synthetic jump in the philosophical sense of the word-- where you the second part of your conlusion-- the elevator-- is "synthetic" because it pulls the ideas of the earlier concept of the "stair"?
I'm not sure what you're asking but the elevator is a synthesized version of the escalator which is a synthesized version of the stair. The elevator (for lack of a better term) that I have conceived uses an assemblage of other things to take the place of the escalator just like synthetic fibres are polymers in assemblage intended to take the palce of other cloths.
