Reflections on the Entrance Area

By Editorial Staff - 15 June 2023
Oikos has participated in the project

The recently concluded DoorScape was the first edition of a competition organized by Oikos Venezia and Fondazione Querini Stampalia of Venice, born from the desire to encourage reflection on the architecture of the entrance space. Understood as a boundary and filter between inside and outside, such a space provokes reflections that are not only architectural but also psychoanalytic in nature, and the purpose of DoorScape was precisely to analyze its multiple aspects, transcending a purely technical approach. That is why the call was open not only to architects but also to designers, artists, surveyors and students.
The common thread was that each sought to study this meeting space from multiple perspectives, exploring how boundaries intersect to realize an unprecedented common territory.
After evaluating the 150 entries received, the jury – chaired by AMDL CIRCLE and Michele De Lucchi, and composed of Donatella Calabi, Alessandra Chemollo, Emanuele Coccia, Luciano Giubbilei and Eugenia Morpurgo – selected the ten most deserving projects to be displayed in the DoorScape | The Space Beyond the Threshold exhibition, named after the winning project conceived by Setion Branko. The Space Beyond the Threshold, taken as a whole, brings together many aspects that make the entrance area an environment whose style transcends time. It arouses the visitor’s curiosity through an intriguing play of perspectives, induces them to go up a short staircase and cross an access arch that leads into an intermediate area between public and private space. Here, the space is characterized by a calibrated combination of colors and materials – wood, stone and glass – in which the doorway is finally revealed in its entirety. It is precisely around the theme of the doorway or portal that the reflections of the architectural practice revolve. This type of entrance was very common in traditional architecture and, often accompanied by a bench, served not only as a threshold but also as a meeting place. This explains the small courtyard that, in the project, precedes the main entrance and prevents it from being placed in direct visual relation with the public street. The final element is a metal revolving door framed in recycled glass and adorned with a custom curved metal handle. The other projects selected and viewable in the exhibition are The Cut by Matheus Cartocci, The Garden of Utopia by Emanuele Cipolla, Threshold from Sign to Place by Filippo Garau, Prélude by Isabelle Gomez, Viride by Anna Loggia and Alice Fantino, Instrument Door by Sara Simoska, Doorscape by Maria Grazia Spirito, Hypostyle by Victor Catalin Tanasa, The Threshold as Landing by Antonella Trusgnach.
The exhibition, which opened on 17 May, will be on display at Fondazione Querini Stampalia until 26 November 2023.