95the room, as though with a dance partner whom we hold by
the hand, then switch to the handle on the other side of the
door, pass over the threshold, and pull the door towards us
in order to close it, until the latch falls into place, the act of
closure confirmed acoustically as well. If the door opens in-
ward into the room, we enter it together with the door, which
now precedes us as we cross the threshold. Only now do we
turn back slightly in order to close the door. The movements
involved in closing the door, which vary according to whether
it opens outward or inward, have contrasting gestural con-
tents. The act of pushing a door closed has connotations, for
example of keeping out wind and weather, or of repelling un-
desired strangers outside, while the action of pulling a door
shut behind us resembles that of closing a cape. In both cases,
the door represents a gesture and a frame for acts of coming
and going.
- Where pairs of doors are set in the middles of op-
posite walls, the space between them is traversed by us-
ers; if they face each other near neighbouring corners, the
room is traversed only tangentially. In a room into which
a door opens, it normally lies along the surface of the
wall. It can be opened only in one direction, since a rab-
bet creates a tight seal against air, noise, light and odours.
On the other side, a flat space resides in the reveal, which
may be regarded as the most economical form of a transi-
tional space. The direction in which the door opens will em-
phasize the direction of crossing. And the directional swing
of opening will depend upon the axis of rotation, i.e. whether
the hinges are positioned on the left or the right side. For the
room into which the door opens, this directionality is fun-
damentally important, since the door, as a movable portion
of the wall, either covers and doubles the adjacent wall, or
else projects into the space of the room, subdividing it. Josef
Frank pointed out that this has both atmospheric and social
implications: a door positioned in a corner opens either to-
wards the corner, thereby exposing the middle of the room,