Thresholds

This is a book about doors and thresholds: about entrances to prehistoric sanctuaries, Egyptian, Greek and Roman temples, medieval cathedrals, fortresses, palaces and villas. It tells about what makes them special — the symbolic meaning that their creators invested in them. Each door signifies

a transition, and the threshold is a boundary between two realities, the border of two worlds and two states. Doors are inseparably linked to the concepts of change and evolution, and sometimes become a connecting thread between dream and reality, light and shadow, ignorance and wisdom.

Oscar Martinez invites the reader on a journey: from the house of the Vettii in Pompeii to the Mengu dolmen and the Abbey of Sainte-Foy; from the Pantheon of Hadrian to the triumphal arch of Titus, from the funerary complex of Ramses III to St. Mark's Cathedral, from the Comares Palace in the Alhambra to the Bauhaus building in Dessau, from the Güell estate in Barcelona to Castel Nuovo in Naples, from the Regaleira estate in Portugal to the Secession House in Vienna…

This essay book opens doors to the history and culture of different eras. Those readers who have already passed through these doors may see them with new eyes. And those who are not yet familiar with them will discover their timeless grandeur.