Architectural liminality: the communicative ethics of balconies and other urban passages

ABSTRACT

In this article, I offer a phenomenological examination of the communicative nature of architectural features located between the private and public spheres of the city. These include balconies, porches, doors, windows, fire escapes, and entrances, which enable important communicative practices for inhabitants and passers-by. Focusing specifically on their liminality as an elemental condition for communication, I use the umbrella term Urban Liminal Architecture and explore their simultaneous, paradoxical operative modes of connectivity and separation, along with playfulness and freedom. This builds up to the critical examination of communication in relation to architectural liminality, with a specific focus on interactions between stranger inhabitants and passers-by and ethical practices. I argue that liminal architecture contributes to the values of ‘the communicative city’ and to the understanding of the essence of communication as transmitting and sharing, while it embodies the materiality of communication. I call to view the site of urban liminal architecture as a symbol and a condition of an ethical relationship with the Other.

KEYWORDS:

• City
• urban liminal architecture
• private-public
• dwelling
• communication
• phenomenology

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to Ted Striphas, the editor, and to the two reviewers, for their careful readings and very helpful suggestions. This work on the communicative nature of liminal architecture has paved its way also through important discussions, sometimes collaborative conference panels, with Peter Simonson, Greg Dickinson, Jaqueline McLeod Rogers, Susan Drucker, Clayton Rosati, and John Dowd, among others. I am thankful for these.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 These architectural features are prevalent also in other parts of the world, but those are beyond the scope of this article. I would like to encourage other scholars to study other places, urban or rural, in the world.

2 See, for instance, the motif of the window in Amichai's (2013a, 2013b) and Bialik’s (2005) poetry, and the window and balcony in literature, war diaries, and artwork of Gibson (2003), Rubin (2019), Sartre (1965), Frank (2010), and Mourani (2009). See also Bystrom (2013), Savin Ben Shoshan (2019) and Lefebvre (1992/2004).

3 Following de Certeau’s (1984) ‘Walking in the City’ scholars who study the city call for us to explore cities by ‘walking’ and through movement, in order identify with and understand the ordinary and everyday life of the urban environment (see Bassett 2004, Morris 2004, Peake 2012, Gallagher et al. 2013, Pierce and Lawhon 2015, Dickinson and Aiello 2016, Drucker 2018, Springgay and Truman 2018).

4 See for instance, Siegert (2015) about the European door, Mugerauer (1993) about the American porch, and Author (2009) about the Tel Aviv balcony.

5 I included in this section only a couple of sources for each example. However, evidence for balconies, porches, and windows’ communicative practices are prevalent within the daily lives of Western and Mediterranean urban places and can commonly be found both on the streets and in the media.

6 Gehl (2011) is interested in the urban conditions that encourage relationship with people in the city (not so much in-between home and street). He defines relationship as more of a reciprocal and equal practice, and thus it is narrower than what is offered in this article, seeing any social interaction as communication, including for instance when one stays at the window to look at the street.

7 I have noticed the great advantage American and Israeli men have in often being in charge of mowing the grass in the front yard, doing outside gardening, hanging flags and Christmas lights, doing physical work in the garage and in front of it. All these activities bring them to the front of the house or apartment, available for meeting others.

8 For instance, in the 1950s and 1960s when television, intercoms, telephones, and air-conditioning entered homes, most Tel Aviv balconies were enclosed by shutters (Author 2009). In the 1990s, a reverse trend was seen in which ‘traditional’ balconies were built and old ones renovated and opened again. Similarly, by the mid-twentieth century, air-conditioning (and seemingly the entertainment of television) led the American porch to ‘move’ to the back yard, and instead of the porch, new panoramic windows were set in the front of houses. In the late 1980s, the porch was re-introduced in traditional neighbourhood developments (McAlester 2015). See also Spigel (1992) and Wilson-Doenges (2001).

9 Van Loon focuses specifically on mediation of communication technologies or media. I develop this approach elsewhere, where I state that liminal architectural features operate as communication technologies.

10 My work relies on the broad research I have conducted since the mid-2000's on the one-hundred-year history of the Tel Aviv balcony. I have studied the cultural and social history, uses, and architecture of these balconies, and collected hundreds of pieces of archival documents, old photographs, paintings, poetry, literature, media products, advertisements, historical and architectural books, laws, urban plans and the like. Parts of this work were published in Author (2009). Through that work, I have also learned about European urban planning and architectural styles of living areas and specifically of openings in buildings. In addition to this research, the current article draws on my experience of living in or visiting certain cities and towns in Israel, United States, Canada, Greece, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and Poland.

11 See Pallasmaa (2005) for the experience of architecture through the senses, including the concept of the architecture's skin. See Simmel (1997) and Siegert (2015) for the difference that a door creates between inside and outside.

12 See for instance The American Bungalow: 1880–1930 (Lancaster 2012, pp. 56, 60, 62, 70, 78, 163), and J.H. Borgelf Residence 625 S. Meldrum St Ft Collins Colo. (unknown photographer, probably 1890s) (Sladek 2019).

13 It is worth mentioning that every Muslim family will practice religion somewhat differently. Different norms and gestures apply for people from different cultures and origins.

14 This was written as a broader explanation of Levinas’ ethics (in Harrison 2007).

15 For Levinas’ ethics see also, among others, his books Time and the Other (1987) and Totality and Infinity: Essays on exteriority (1969).

Additional information

Funding

This research was conducted when I worked as a special faculty at the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University.

Notes on contributors

Carolin Aronis

Carolin Aronis, PhD is a Postdoctoral Scholar and a Visiting Lecturer of Communication Studies at the University of Colorado Boulder and an Affiliate Faculty of Communication Studies at Colorado State University. Her research is placed at the intersection of media phenomenology, gender studies, and architecture. Much of her work relates to innovative communicative perspectives on media, intimacy, urban life, identity, activism, and death.