The entrance is the most sensitive place in a dwelling: it gives some idea of the identity of the inhabitants and of whether they want you to know them or not. Not so long ago the window looking on to the street would display a vase, a plant set between glass and curtain, or a statue facing outwards. Even the hem of the curtain was turned inward, the best side being reserved for the street. Front doors had attention lavished on them, protected by a welcoming porch. The letterbox was celebrated, the door knocker a piece of craftsmanship: this is after all the frontier of tactile contact between the outside world and the family. Nothing was abstract, nothing done in a mean or contemptuous way. What has happened to this constructive display of ethnological expression? It is notably absent in the basic modern door with its miserable letter flap in sheet metal and its industrial bellpush. Today it is a relief even to see the scrap of sticking plaster that a doctor has stuck under his bell to inform his patients of changes in his surgery hours!
Figure 3.3.1 Lucien Kroll’s drawing of a traditional door, published with this text in his book Composants of 1985