Inside and outside are two very different concepts. They are separated by brick, wood, slate, hard, physical materials forming a barrier between the two; however, the space between them lies in a sort of no-mans land of spatial typology.
The threshold of a space is, for a moment, a place where one can be both inside and out. It is a transitional space both literally and figuratively. In Japanese design, they have a set area for this transition. Called the genkan, it is a space for shaking off the outside before properly entering the main house. Both practical and symbolic it provides a way of keeping the living area clean and providing a space to transition between the outside and in. Leaving the outside out. Keeping the inside in.
The threshold itself is a state of change. The entrance way is either open or closed. Although a door cannot be varying degrees of closed, it can be varying degrees of open. A wedged door is still in essence ‘open.’ The entrance is subject to how we interact with it, and the conditions change as the situation changes.
Take the tradition of the groom carrying his new bride over the threshold. The ancient Romans started it: the bride had to show that she was reluctant to leave the parental home, and so was dragged over the threshold to her groom's house. Ancients also believed that evil spirits, in an effort to curse the couple, hovered at the threshold of their new home, so the bride had to be lifted to ensure that the spirits couldn't enter her body through the soles of her feet. These days, this old custom is done just for fun.
A threshold takes you from one place into another, and when you're about to start something new, you're also on a threshold. A threshold is an amount, level, or limit on a scale. When the threshold is reached, something else happens or changes. In business terms, a threshold is a boundary beyond which a radically different state of affairs exists
A project that challenges the idea of the threshold is Do Ho Suh's 'home within home within home within home within home.' The immersive, fabric reproduction is a full-scale recreation of the homes the artist has lived in throughout his life. The project explores the ideas of displacement and temporal boundaries, the viewer is left to wander through the translucent mesh sheets caught in a constant shifting state between the inside and the outside and left contemplating this concept of the space 'between'.
Whatever the setting the threshold provides us with a boundary on which to make a transition however large or small. From simply stepping through your doorway after a day at work to stumbling over the threshold in the arms of your husband as newlyweds this between space provides us with a moment of reflection that we rarely choose to take. A chance to shake off the day or embark on a new adventure.
