17 Painted and Tiled Staircases Around the World, from Rio to Seoul

Stairs are made for climbing, yet some of the world's most photographed staircases are works of art in their own right. From the tiled mosaics of San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro to the maiolica steps of a Sicilian hill town and the rainbow stairs of Istanbul and Beirut, these 17 staircases show how a simple flight of steps can lift a whole neighbourhood.

Tiled stairs in San Francisco and Rio de Janeiro

1. 16th Avenue Tiled Steps, San Francisco, USA. In 2003 two neighbours in Golden Gate Heights, Jessie Audette and Alice Yee Xavier, decided to turn a grey concrete stairway on Moraga Street, between 15th and 16th Avenues, into a work of art. The artists Aileen Barr and Colette Crutcher designed a sea-to-stars mosaic of 163 panels, one for each of the 163 steps, and neighbours sponsored handmade tiles bearing their names. The steps opened on 27 August 2005, and the view from the top across the Sunset District to the Pacific is a reward for the climb.

8. Women Are Heroes, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The French artist JR pasted giant portraits of local women across the stairs and walls of a Rio hillside community for his Women Are Heroes project, so that the faces and eyes of the residents looked out over the city.

12. Escadaria Selarón, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio's most famous staircase links the Lapa and Santa Teresa neighbourhoods. The Chilean-born artist Jorge Selarón (1947–2013) began covering the 215 steps outside his house in 1990 and kept going for more than two decades, using over 2,000 tiles collected from more than 60 countries. He called it "my tribute to the Brazilian people". The 125-metre staircase has appeared in music videos by Snoop Dogg and U2.

Painted stairs of Valparaíso and Philadelphia

2 and 4. Valparaíso, Chile. Chile's great port city, about 120 kilometres north-west of Santiago, is built on dozens of steep hills linked by stairways and old funiculars; the first, Ascensor Concepción, opened in 1883. In the mid-1990s a grassroots movement filled its streets, alleys and stairways with murals, and the historic quarter has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2003. Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepción are among its oldest hills.

3. Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA. The east entrance stairs of the museum, at the top of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, became world-famous as the "Rocky Steps" after Sylvester Stallone's boxer ran up them in Rocky (1976). A bronze statue of Rocky Balboa now stands at the foot of the stairs. The museum's main building was completed in 1928.

Art staircases in Europe and Istanbul

6. Wuppertal, Germany. This painted flight of steps in the hilly city of Wuppertal, in North Rhine-Westphalia, was photographed by frizztext.

7. Caltagirone, Sicily, Italy. The Scalinata di Santa Maria del Monte climbs 142 steps through the old town of Caltagirone, in the Metropolitan City of Catania. Work on the staircase began in 1608, and each riser is faced with different hand-decorated ceramic tiles, a tribute to the town's long maiolica tradition. Around the feast of St James on 25 July the steps are lit with coloured candles that form a giant picture. Caltagirone is one of the Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto, listed by UNESCO in 2002.

13. Angers, France. The street artist Mademoiselle Maurice is known for colourful installations in public places, and this staircase in the Loire Valley city of Angers is one of her works.

14. Istanbul, Turkey. In August 2013 a local resident, Hüseyin Çetinel, painted about 200 steps between Fındıklı and Cihangir in Beyoğlu in rainbow colours "to put a smile on people's faces". When municipal workers painted them grey, the #resiststeps campaign trended on Twitter, residents repainted stairs across the city, and Beyoğlu's mayor promised "an era of colourful steps".

15. Morlaix, France. The Breton town of Morlaix is the setting for this staircase by the artist ZAG.

Colourful stairs of Beirut, Syria and Tehran

9 and 17. Beirut, Lebanon. Both Beirut staircases come from Dihzahyners, a collective founded in 2012 by Jubran Elias and Lana Chukri. The name plays on "designers" and the Arabic word for paint. Their Paint Up initiative, launched the same year, has brightened stairways and streets across the city.

11. Stairs of Peace, Syria. Volunteers from the Jood Voluntary Team painted these steps under the name "Stairs of Peace".

16. Tehran, Iran. Painted steps bring colour to a street in the Iranian capital.

Painted stairs in Seoul

5 and 10. Seoul, South Korea. Two very different staircases come from the South Korean capital: a painted outdoor stairway photographed by Kevin Lowry, and the stairs leading to a musical theatre, photographed by Kimhwan.

Most of these staircases are everyday routes for the people who live beside them. Go early in the morning for the best light and the fewest crowds, and leave room for residents to pass.

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