333overcome resistance at the wall level. When passing through a
screen consisting of thick, hard, masonry, one has a greater
sense of accomplishment then when passing through a card-
board wall.
The sense of inhibition affected by the threshold brings
about a stopping and hesitation before crossing that is to
some extent compelled, and to some extent born of insecurity.
In many instances, one must ring, call or knock and then wait
before receiving a reply or being observed secretly or con-
trolled wordlessly. The architectural accoutrements for this
situation, including doorbell, spyhole and intercom, are ei-
ther the expression of invitations to communicate or a means
of surveillance and defence. The door niche and porch are
sparing frames for the place where one waits and attempts to
make contact. The doormat forms the floor for an awkward
marking of time, even when the way through has already been
opened; a culturally conditioned shyness causes us to hesitate
at the entrance to a strange house. This ambivalence does not
allow the threshold to one’s own home to appear as an inhibi-
tion, but as the securing of the > dwelling; inhibition is only
for strangers. Upon being crossed, the threshold occasions a
change of behaviour, one that is now recognizably dependent
upon the character of the rooms, and hence of their architec-
ture. Although thresholds are spoken of everywhere today as
‘interfaces’, the threshold in architecture not simply an inter-
face of black boxes, but is also conditioned by the charac-
ters of the occasionally interpenetrating adjacent spaces. ‘A
boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the
Greeks recognized, a boundary is that from which something
begins its presencing.’ (Heidegger 1953/2008, 152)
Today, architectural design often tends towards spaces
without thresholds, and towards the spatial interlinking of
the building with its environment. At the same time, the ne-
cessity for controlling admission, for security, selection and
surveillance increases steadily, requiring a differentiated regu-
lation of invitation and exclusion, opening and closing. This