Inside the Façade: The Inhabited Space between Domestic and Urban Realms

This article investigates the thesis that the façade, as a diaphragm between two worlds, private and public, architecture and city, domestic and urban, embraces the representation and expression of architectural character, looking at its leading role in the definition of the urban environment, both reacting to it and defining it. However, in particular, the paper focuses on the theme of façade as an inhabited threshold: not a two–dimensional vertical plane but a real architectural interior space. The inhabited façade becomes a place through which it is possible to experience the relationship between interior and exterior, between private and public, architecture and city, not only through the physical movement of “going inside,” “stepping outside,” “walking through” but also through the act of staying, living, and enjoying it as a space and a place that allows relationships between inside and outside.