🏛 The paradox and power of thresholds
The world is full of change and ambiguity so we may as well join the party.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” ~ R. Buckminster Fuller
This aphorism from the kooky genius architect who invented the geodesic dome and the Dymaxion car has been a mantra of mine for years.1 Fuller came to mind this week when reading
’s latest post about fossil fuel companies doubling down on oil and methane—despite record heat.“While making promises that they’ll slash their emissions by 2030, fossil fuel companies are simultaneously investing in new projects. Hundreds of new oil and gas projects around the world have been approved in the past year, according to a New York Times analysis. Demand is also higher than ever: fossil fuels made up 82 percent of the world’s energy use in 2022.”
It left me feeling angry and helpless. What can I possibly do to counter a multi-billion dollar industry that is, quite literally, hellbent on killing the planet for money? As Heated often points out, that helplessness is just what the corporate miscreants want us to feel, when, in reality, we have a lot of agency.
Fuller reminds me that architects have agency to respond creatively to difficult problems. The recent graduates featured in the Building Hope podcast are determined to build new models, and they have counterparts around the world in every industry. Once you see and hear about one of their projects, it stays with you as proof of possibility. If we can dream it, we can build it, right?
Indeed, we are on the threshold of positive changes at every scale—local, regional, national, international. Thresholds are fascinating and dangerous places. I am captivated by the idea that two things can have their own unique identities and together form a third, also unique thing. In architecture, we called this mutuality “both-and.” At thresholds, the space in a doorway is neither inside nor outside; it is both. And—this is the coolest part—it is also a third place, unique and distinct from the other two.
As individuals, our lives are full of thresholds.
recently wrote about personal thresholds, which got me thinking about the many doorways I’ve gone through, many unwillingly. Once on the other side, I made my peace with them and even grew to appreciate the lessons and changes.Mythology has many guardians of the threshold, including the ancient Roman god Janus. He is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, doorways, passages and endings. Depicted as having two faces, he can look in both directions—to past and future. The month January is aptly named for him.
Janus symbolized change and transitions and was worshiped at the beginnings of the harvest and planting times, as well as at marriages, deaths and other beginnings. He represented the middle ground between barbarism and civilization, between rural and urban space, youth and adulthood.
The mythologist Joseph Campbell wrote that crossing the threshold is one of the steps on the Hero’s Journey—his compendium of mythic tales from throughout human history and culture.2 The threshold is the point of leaving behind all that the hero knows and venturing into uncharted territory. It leads to the road of trials, to unknown threats and dangers. In order to summon the aid and magic he will need to succeed, the hero must cross that threshold.
Heidegger, Bachelard and other philosophers beloved by architects identify the threshold as a place of pain and hostility. This reinforces the mythic understanding that the exchange of inside for outside, and vice versa, is not accomplished without some sacrifice. Heidegger also insists that the in-between, the very space of the threshold, has its own integrity and identity. Rather than being a necessary but fleeting stage, the threshold is the dependable space that makes the relationship between inside and outside possible.
It’s interesting that the very etymology of our word for “threshold,” is disputed. There are several theories, but no definitive explanation for the two parts of the word and how they came to be combined. This is fitting, as though the threshold itself is too powerful and magical a place to be pinned down by mere language. The best we can do is dance around it.
Old English had wold as the second half of the word, which means “forest.” Not only are thresholds everywhere in the forest, but the whole place, in a sense, is a threshold. The forest is a betwixt and between. As are the days and the seasons. Who hasn’t been awed by the liminal times of sunrise and sunset? After a lifetime in and out of academia, fall is a strong threshold for me, both culturally as “back to school” and emotionally, leaving behind summer’s bounty and preparing to enter winter’s long nights of stillness and waiting. Thresholds are the signature of the natural world.
Yet we live in a culture that pushes us to choose. It keeps insisting that there are right and wrong answers, good and bad paths, winners and losers. This black and white thinking is a hallmark of the adolescent brain. Subtlety, shades of gray, both/and —these are foreign to the adolescent mind. A culture that denies the hero’s journey and forces choice (while subversively denying real choice to millions) leaves us in a state of perpetual adolescence.
It’s important to know what we’re up against, which is why I depend on
to tell impeccably researched stories of corruption, exploitation and greed. Even while trapped in the very system that’s killing the planet, we can seek out the thresholds of change. We can dwell there for a time, even a lifetime. It feels like a radical act to tolerate both/and, but the world is full of paradox and ambiguity so we may as well join in. We can work in countless ways to shift the balance to stories of connection and belonging. From that place of humility, wonder and awe, we can build new models.What new models are you building these days?
Okay, true, he wanted to cover New York City in a mile-high dome, but MLB’s best batter this summer, Shohei Ohtani of the L.A. Angels, is “only” hitting .616. Nobody’s perfect.
His project has since been questioned as overly reductive, as mentioned in another brilliant essay by Priya Iyer recently.
Great read!
I had never heard the quote you shared at the start - it’s so good!
I’m also a big fan of Priya’s work.
And I also really enjoyed how you applied the concept of thresholds to your piece. Thanks
Fuller was just so damn smart.
I had a great conversation with an architect friend a few weeks back, and we talked a lot about the idea of architecture and infrastructure creatively solving big problems. That was a really fun thing to think about, and you've done a good job of reminding me that this is a huge component of any solution to a systemic problem: innovative solutions in the realm of planning on a large scale.