humankind, then in the case of the door, both are concentrated more uniformly in human
achievement as human achievement. This is the basis for the richer and livelier
significance of the door compared to the bridge, which is also revealed in the fact that it
makes no difference in meaning in which direction one crosses a bridge, whereas the
door displays a complete difference of intention between entering and exiting. This
completely distinguishes it from the significance of the window which, as a connection of
inner space with the external world, is otherwise related to the door. Yet the teleological
emotion with respect to the window is directed almost exclusively from inside to outside:
it is there for looking out, not for looking in. It creates the connection between the inner
and the outer chronically and continually, as it were, by virtue of its transparency; but the
one-sided direction in which this connection runs, just like the limitation upon it to be a
path merely for the eye, gives to the window only a part of the deeper and more
fundamental significance of the door.
Of course, the particular situation can also emphasize one direction of the latter’s
function more than the other. When the masonry openings in Gothic or Romanesque
cathedrals gradually taper down to the actual door and one reaches it between rows of
semi-columns and figures that approach each other more and more closely, then the
significance of these doors is obviously meant to be that of a leading into but not a
leading out of somewhere—the latter existing rather as an unfortunately unavoidable
accidental property. This structure leads the person entering with certainty and with a
gentle, natural compulsion on the right way. (This meaning is extended, as I mention for
the sake of analogy here, by the rows of columns between the door and high altar. By
perspectivally moving closer together, they point the way, lead us onwards, permit no
wavering—which would not be the case if we actually observed the real parallelism of
the pillar; for then the end point would display no difference from that of the beginning,
there would be no marking to indicate that we must start at the one point and end up at
the other. Yet no matter how wonderfully perspective is used here for the inner
orientation of the church, it ultimately also lends itself to the opposite effect and allows
the row of pillars to direct us to the door with the same narrowing from altar to door as
the one that leads us to its main point.) Only that external conical form of the door makes
entering in contrast to exiting its completely unambiguous meaning. But this is in fact a
totally unique situation which it symbolizes, namely, that the movement of life, which
goes equally from inside to outside and from outside to inside, terminates at the church
and is replaced by the only direction which is necessary. Life on the earthly plane,
however, as at every moment it throws a bridge between the unconnectedness of things,
likewise stands in every moment inside or outside the door through which it will lead
from its separate existence into the world, or from the world into its separate existence.
The forms that dominate the dynamics of our lives are thus transferred by bridge and
door into the fixed permanence of visible creation. They do not support the merely
functional and teleological aspect of our movements as tools; rather, in their form it
solidifies, as it were, into immediately convincing plasticity. Viewed in terms of the
opposing emphases that prevail in their impression, the bridge indicates how humankind
unifies the separatedness of merely natural being, and the door how it separates the
uniform, continuous unity of natural being. The basis for their distinctive value for the
visual arts lies in the general aesthetic significance which they gain through this
visualization of something metaphysical, this stabilization of something merely
Rethinking Architecture 66