The Epic of the Corridor: The Poem of Footsteps

The corridor is read as the very moment of passage, the distance between what we have left and where we are going, far more than wasted space between rooms. It is followed through curiosity, the body, narrow and wide passages, light at the end, shadow, sound and the footsteps a child recognizes as a father's, then into the home, the Damascene house, the Alhambra, Versailles and its Hall of Mirrors, and the cloister. Hospitals, schools, universities, offices, hotels, prisons and museums each change its meaning, while Le Corbusier's promenade at Villa Savoye, Wright's compression and release, Tadao Ando, Louis Kahn and Carlo Scarpa use it to shape experience. The Japanese engawa, bridges, airports, streets, Souq al-Hamidiyah and the corridors of New York lead to a closing warning against the corridor that makes people lose their way.