In the Middle Ages, paradise was believed to be finite, enclosed by a physical barrier: a wall that separated the 'inside' from the 'outside'. Within this understanding of enclosure, the innermost, the paradise itself, stood apart from the world around it.
In medieval paintings, this wall was often, perhaps unintentionally, rendered as more important than the garden it enclosed. The wall thus not only defined inside and outside, but also became a figure in its own right. Because the inside differed so radically from the outside, the wall acquired meaning as an autonomous manifestation of the boundary.
Many paintings made this visible through material contrast: the inner face decorated with gold, silver, or even diamonds, while the exterior side was rendered in simple masonry. In this way, the primacy of the interior over the exterior was underlined in material form.
In A Typology of Everyday Constellations, Georges Teyssot reflects on the French word intérieur, which originally signified the 'innermost'. The term once referred above all to our personal, inner life, the human soul. Only in the second half of the nineteenth century did it acquire the meaning we use today: a condition of comfort and well-being within the home. One of the essential roles of the interior, then, is to safeguard our inner life. In Latin, intimus means 'the innermost' or 'the most familiar', while inter translates as 'between', that which exists between ourselves and the outside world.
Here lies one of the defining qualities of the interior: its capacity to outline space. The 'in' of 'interior' already implies an 'outside'. To sustain this duality, some form of boundary is always required, just as in the medieval representation of paradise, where the wall was indispensable. Yet unlike the enclosed garden, this boundary is not static.
Ongoing cultural and societal change continually re-shapes the relationship between interior and exterior. Each new context calls for fresh spatial concepts and insights, enabling us to rethink how these thresholds may be drawn, dissolved, or reimagined.
This context determines how people can feel sheltered, grounded, and at home in the world: within an environment they recognise as their own.
A space in which to be.
w/ ingrid van zanten, jesse van lienen