WINDOWS AND ENTRANCes
This for me is a relatively new theme but one that I have been pondering some time.
Windows hold a perrenniel fascination for us. They are necessarily set in a wall or barrier dividing us from the other side; we are either outside looking in or inside offering an escape into the other world outside, to liberation and freedom. They may even form a wall, an imperceptible barrier in themselves as in many modern buildings. They are both practical, letting in the light, and symbolic and resonant of poetic meaning. The shop window is a special case: It affords a view of the goods on offer while forming a barrier to the shop interior; it is a microcosm, an enclosed world, a private view on the public highway - it tells a story, an inducement to step inside and buy.
Entrances are another case. They lure us in, an inducement to step for a time out of the mundane, the real world, to come in out of the cold. They offer us a promise and a threat. We may be stepping into a pleasure dome or a circle of hell. It is not insignificant that access to Paradise is through a gate and to Hell through a hole in the ground. Subterranean passageways, with their twists and angles form an unnatural environment; alien, other, with a hint of terror; we are in suspension, on the way to somewhere else - we are passing through extended, open ended rooms in which we don't want to linger.
Windows hold a perrenniel fascination for us. They are necessarily set in a wall or barrier dividing us from the other side; we are either outside looking in or inside offering an escape into the other world outside, to liberation and freedom. They may even form a wall, an imperceptible barrier in themselves as in many modern buildings. They are both practical, letting in the light, and symbolic and resonant of poetic meaning. The shop window is a special case: It affords a view of the goods on offer while forming a barrier to the shop interior; it is a microcosm, an enclosed world, a private view on the public highway - it tells a story, an inducement to step inside and buy.
Entrances are another case. They lure us in, an inducement to step for a time out of the mundane, the real world, to come in out of the cold. They offer us a promise and a threat. We may be stepping into a pleasure dome or a circle of hell. It is not insignificant that access to Paradise is through a gate and to Hell through a hole in the ground. Subterranean passageways, with their twists and angles form an unnatural environment; alien, other, with a hint of terror; we are in suspension, on the way to somewhere else - we are passing through extended, open ended rooms in which we don't want to linger.
Subway 1
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Detail: subway 1
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Subway 2
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Subway 3, Hemel Hempstead
Empty Window
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Subway 4, Hemel Hempstead
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