#ThursdayDoors
Doors and gates – much like bridges – have always held a particular fascination for me. Perhaps because they are never simply objects. They separate one space from another, but at the same time offer the possibility of connecting them. Whether we look through one side of the door or the other can change our perspective—or at least have a major impact on it.
Some time ago, I came across the hashtag #ThursdayDoors. For a moment I thought about contributing a photograph or two, then dropped the idea. Now I have decided to return to it – not with one door, but with quite a few, photographed mainly in China and Austria.
There will be no attempt at a systematic study of doors here. Just a few thoughts, and plenty of doors.
One Door – Two Worlds
I would like to begin with a recent trip to the Schneeberg. We went there to escape the heat of the city for a day. A cog railway takes you up the mountain and, stepping out of the station, you suddenly find yourself in another world: alpine vegetation, open sky and wonderful views of the surrounding landscape.
That deserves a post of its own one day.
Not far away stands the small Elisabethkirche, built in memory of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Its metal door caught my attention: a burst of gold radiates from the centre.
Step through it, turn around, and the same door has changed completely. The gold has almost disappeared. What remains is a dark structure through which light enters from outside.
Nothing has happened to the door.
Only we have changed sides.
One door, two worlds.
Doors We Open – and Doors We Close
A door can be opened, and it can be closed. That simple fact becomes more interesting once we leave architecture behind.
We also decide whether to open or close doors to people, ideas, interests and cultures unfamiliar to us. Individuals do this, but societies and states do it as well – with rather greater consequences.
China and the West have opened and closed doors to one another repeatedly throughout their long relationship. I have no intention of turning a #ThursdayDoors post into a geopolitical essay. 😊 But perhaps it is worth remembering that a closed door tells us as much about ourselves as it does about whatever happens to be on the other side.
One of the doors I opened long ago led to China. It has remained open ever since. Many of these photographs come from my Yunnan journey earlier in 2026, where doors often made me stop before I noticed the building around them.
And perhaps that is the more interesting point: we can create doors where none existed before. To another culture, another field of interest, another way of seeing – even to parts of our own inner world.
Whether we walk through them is another matter.
Doors to the Imagination
The next two photographs may stretch the idea of a “door” a little, but I think they belong here.
In the first photograph, two tree trunks frame an opening toward the sky. Moving a little changes the relationship between the trunks, branches and shadows. In the next view, the opening becomes simpler and more sharply defined.
Again, the object has hardly changed.
Our point of view has.
Chinese Doors
In China, gates and doors can carry meanings far beyond their practical function. A main gate could traditionally indicate status and identity; within courtyard architecture, gates also marked transitions between more public and more private spaces. Their position could be considered in relation to feng shui (风水), where orientation and the movement of qi (气) through a building and its surroundings mattered.[1]
Another feature I often notice is the raised wooden or stone threshold, ménkǎn (门槛), at a traditional entrance. You have to lift your foot and step over it. That small interruption makes entering a more conscious action. [2]
I rather like that.
A door that requires a small conscious step before entering.
Most of the following photographs can speak for themselves.
Austrian Doors
Someone once wrote that Vienna is a city of doors. I have no idea whether Vienna has any legitimate claim to that title, but walking through the city it is easy to understand the thought.
Many historic buildings have retained their entrances, and some of the most striking examples date from the period of Viennese Jugendstil. Doors were not merely holes in façades; architects and designers treated them as part of the building’s overall composition.
But Vienna would not be Vienna if all its doors were elegant, carefully restored and historically important.
There are other doors too.
Fortunately.
P.S. For more doors, visit Dan Antion’s Thursday Doors posts. In his introduction to the project, he explains that he took over its stewardship from Norm Frampton in December 2020.
Footnotes
[1] Feng shui 风水, literally “wind and water”, is a traditional practice concerned with the relationship between buildings and their surroundings. The Royal Ontario Museum’s Chinese architecture gallery discusses its connection with the form and ritual purposes of buildings. It provides context here, rather than an explanation of every door in these photographs.
[2] Ménkǎn 门槛 literally means a door threshold. Like “threshold” in English, the word can also be used figuratively for a barrier or level that has to be crossed.
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