Everyday threshold. The role of doors in the construction of contemporary domesticity

Abstract

We are all living in a hyperconnected world. Outside looks the interior directly, with almost no filters or screens. In this new situation, the ability of the doors to build thresholds is at stake. Our relationship with thresholds is broad but not the historical theories about them Those theories haven't put the focus on a complete phenomenological approach. Van Gennep, Simmel or Bachelard's studies address complementary aspects about the thresholds and doors. But they do not explain their role in the formation of the room, the meaning of their worn steps, or the importance of their number in the privacy settings. In the thresholds of Alison and Peter Smithson's own house, in Van Eyck´s works, the history of painting and in some modern door handles, we can approach new solutions to the current status of the door. A problem that does not stop only at the outside house door but in that between different rooms an intimacy.