Most architects tend to begin explaining their projects by pointing to the entrance. "You enter here," they usually say. As if nothing had happened or existed before entering. As if the user's life, or that of the building itself, began at that very threshold which many assume separates the exterior from the interior. A strange conception of time.
Enric Miralles made an interesting observation regarding this: it is not about entering, but about accessing—something that will also be marginalized later. We must assume that in architecture, accessing means "to enter a place or pass into it," as the dictionary explains. Yet we also find other, more compelling interpretations, such as "to gain access to a superior situation, condition, or degree; to attain it," which imbue the act of accessing with meaning and time.
