Intimate architectures: a cultural geography of doors

This article seeks to contribute to geography’s continued interest in architecture through a focus on the ‘intimate architectural space’ of the door. Its aims are threefold; the first section seeks to extend knowledge of the door within geographic literature as it becomes a key site in which ‘events are gathered’ and through which politics can be encountered; the second section takes a ‘minor theory approach’, using a range of non-western, feminist, and class-based perspectives, exploring the social and political affordances of the door through the themes of ‘body’ and ‘performativity’. Whilst the conclusion uses these discussions to demonstrate how intimate architectures might further develop our knowledge of built spaces, providing an additional framework to engage with the often-overlooked aspects of architecture. In doing so, the door is presented as a site that structures how we move and relate to our bodies in physical space; most notably that the door’s capacity as a barrier maintains a distinct exclusionary politics which reinforces class and racial divisions through the built environment.