Türen. Zur Materialität des Symbolischen

Abstract

Doors are mediums of architecture as an elementary cultural technique, as they process the key differences of architecture from within and without. The door is a machine, through which the symbolic was materialized in architecture. This contribution describes, by means of examples from cultural, literary and art history, the monologic, epistemic and social aspects and paradoxes of the door as an analog and binary medium. With the obsolescence of the door knob, engendered by the invention of the automated revolving door, the analog door has bid farewell to society and is now mutating to a bio-political instrument which no longer addresses mankind as 'persona', but as a major perturberence.