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By virtue of the fact that a door can be opened, it can also ef-
fect closure; only because it can be closed does it function as
an opening. It is therefore the constructive element through
whose mobility the reciprocal conditioning of closure and
opening, division and connection, find explicit expression
as fundamental architectural functions (> screening). A door
marks off and regulates the boundary between inside and out-
side, and between separate rooms. In the words of Georg Sim-
mel, the door is the connecting and dividing ‘pivot’ that goes
beyond the contrast between inside and outside, even surpass-
ing the expressiveness of a mere dividing wall: ‘Precisely be-
cause it can be opened, it provides, when closed, a stronger
sense of self-containment in relation to everything outside of
the room in comparison to a mere undivided wall. The latter
is mute, while a door speaks.’ (1998, 172) In many verbal for-
mulae, this ‘speaking’ door stands for the building as a whole,
for example when people live ‘right next door’, or when the
door stands metaphorically for certain kinds of access, as
when ‘cordiality (or money) can open any door’. Many archi-
tectural phenomena such as > opening, > ingress and exit, the
> threshold, and the > filter, are objectified by means of
the door as a structural element. Door niches, embrasures,
porches and porticos are spatial extensions that expand the
initially flat object into an > intermediate space, or even to the
scale of a gatehouse of a palace or town gate. Alongside the
fundamental significance of the door for entrance and exit (1),
the operation it requires (2), and its relationship to adjacent
spaces (3) merit special attention.- Whether we enter or leave a house through the door,
or pass from the living room into the kitchen or from an office
corridor or hotel lobby into a room, or open the garden gate,
we act each time in a different situation, and the respective
door plays a different role. Our experiences of doors are just
as variegated as the situations in which they play a part, and
as multiform as the forms, details and architectural configura-
tions of threshold spaces in general.
Door and gate