2. The Door
2.1. The symbolic boundary
Have I ever been conscious of the door? Opening and closing the door of the house feels like entering my island and blocking the outside. Doors always seem to exist in the context of places. The act of truly opening a door itself to have never been thought of. These days, it would be more accurate to say that doors open us up. Automatic sliding doors give the impression that certain places are licensed and freely accessible. Revolving doors represent constant movement and encourage people to keep spinning without stopping the flow.a 39 Each door forms a relationship with space in different ways. The invention of gates had already existed since the Stone Age. Gates, which were used by early civilized humans to block wind, gradually transformed into creative forms due to the development of tools.a 40 From around 90 B.C. to 20 B.C., influential Roman architect Vitruvius defined doors in Architectural Theory. He describes doors as architectural elements that create gaps between urbanized walls.a 41 It defines and displays different areas, but it has a deeper meaning than just dividing the physical space into two.a 42 Since ancient times, the concept of the gate has taken on strong symbolism and iconography, and the gate itself contains duality.‘Only man, as opposed to nature, has the faculty of binding and unbinding, and in this specific manner: that one is always the presupposition of the other. And vice-versa: we experience as connected only what we have previously isolated in some way. Things first must be separated from each other to be united later. It would be pointless to link together what was not divided, indeed. what is not still divided in some way.’a 43
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2.2. Automatic/Transparent Door
'The only original door conceived by our time is the glass revolving door of the hotel and the department store.’a 47
Compared to the doorpost made in the past to more clearly distinguish and emphasize the existence of a door, it now exists only as a function to pass through.a 48 Donald Norman, a researcher in cognitive science and usability engineering, said that the door itself serves a simple purpose. This can be a form of change to gradually extinguishing the deep symbolism of the door that has been passed down through human experience.a 49 On the other hand, Sociologist Adorno’s point of view, the door in everyday life transforms human gestures into mechanical movements and reduces the experience of crossing physical boundaries to merely practical actions.a 50 Thus, The door has moved away its deeper symbolic meaning in the past and have taken on a new meaning in the technicalized environment that controls human behavior. it works as an agent and exerts coercion according to collecting specific demands of technology.a 51 This shows that the perspective on the door has changed significantly, challenging the traditional sociological view that only humans are subjects and objects are passive tools.a 52
Glass distinguishes itself from other materials due to its unique transparency and ability to blur boundaries. In particular, when glass is applied to doors, it gives meaning beyond the simple boundary of the past and stimulates visual interaction between space and people. This created an optical illusion that superimposed and blurred real-life. What we perceive as glass is a more complex process than we think. The complexity of the material’s structure obscures our perspective and perception, not just because it is transparent, but because we feel that we can better understand the characteristics of glass in an object or an artifact than in a simple plate.a 53
The pavilion works that Dan Graham started in the 1980s uses steel and glass to create a space where people can see what kind of social relationships arise within it. Sometimes reflected and sometimes delivered images create visual hallucinations. It confuses our perception and allows us to experience relationships that change from moment to moment depending on movements and their surroundings.a 54 When the two opposing elements of transparency, openness and closedness are applied to transparent doors, They become a metaphor that symbolizes the structure of an ironic and incompatible society and human hegemony.a 55 In Bruno Latour's Theory of Actor-Network (ANT), he argues that objects and humans interact at the same level to create a social environment.a 56 He believes that actors include objects as well as humans, with all these beings can cause social change through interaction.a 57 He also argues that social disparity and power structures are shaped by specific objects that cannot understand the true causes of inequality and domination without analyzing the roles of these mediators.a 58 Behind the gates that block our movement in the airport, the gates are ultimately designed by people, and the hidden actors remain unseen. So, who can we blame? The door? Or the people?a 59 In this reality where the truth is increasingly obscured, the more visually transparent and automated the doors become, the stronger the invisible power structures grow.
