Gateways and Their Places

By Jonathan Nemetz

Places would not exist without the boundaries that mark their end. However, all boundaries are, to some extent, permeable. It is movement between places that gives their differences meaning, and allows different places to be strung together into routines and mental maps. The gateway is a concept as essential to place as a door is to a home, and can say just as much about the places it facilitates movement between. Gateways can be grand or hidden, controlled checkpoints or merely mental, but their powers of delineation are of vital importance to the study of place.

Intentional gateways can be designed specifically to reflect the place that they are welcoming people into. One of the most evocative examples of this is a ‘Chinatown’ Gate featured in many American cities. These gates act as unmissable wayfinding, breaking up the homogeneity of many contemporary American cities. They are also a statement about the values and expectations of the place behind the red gates. The bold architecture builds a sense of pride and belonging in the residents of a neighborhood about the value they place in the traditions of their home countries (the architecture of such gates are often bold and over the top reimaginings of Chinese design). For visitors, the gates provide a snapshot of the businesses and activities they can expect in the area, and marks a visit to the area as something special and distinct from the rest of the city. These gates help build a unique identity and sense of place within the wider fabric of a city, and act as much like a part of the place as a vestibule for it.

The gate into the Chinatown area of Los Angeles, featuring more apocryphal architecture within

Other gateways are far less noticeable, and sometimes unintentional. Here at Hamilton College, the nature of the split campus means that the long path stretching from the Science Hall on the ‘lightside’ to Major Hall on the ‘darkside’ gets tremendous traffic everyday. This one path connecting people across Martin’s Way is full of gateways for different people. The gatehouse feel of Beinecke Village may seem an obvious gateway, but for me, the part of the path that turns into a short tunnel under List Hall also feels like a gateway between work and resting, as I pass from the area with all my classes to the end of campus with my dorm and the trails I run on or take phone calls in. Especially when someone is playing in one of List’s music practice rooms that vent into the underpass, traveling under the brutalist structure switches my brain into rest mode for the evening. For those with other majors, College Hill Rd’s crosswalk may signal the end of their classes and the start of the territory of the Diner or Euphoria Coffee. Athletes may have important mental gateways closer to their fields or practice areas. Important for all of these gateways is a transitory founding and preservation. Schedules may be set up to pass through a certain area, but through repetition and the attachment of personal meaning, these gateways become familiar parts of one’s day. Creating common pathways that feature a variety of different uses helps make the distinction between each of them more clear and meaningful in one’s schedule.

Students on Martin’s Way, the main connection between the ‘light’ and ‘dark’ sides of Hamilton College’s split campus

It should be noted that the attachment of personal meaning to a gateway is not a wholly internal process, and relates a great deal to what a gateway says about who is welcome and who is excluded. The wonderful ability for a gateway to welcome people with familiarity or acceptance can be just as impactful when utilized in the other direction. Obscured and impersonal doorways and facades send the message that if one doesn’t know what a building is, they don’t belong in front of it. Think of a business district or block of condo towers that are only meant for employees or residents, and discourages loitering from the general public. This is particularly prevalent in buildings or areas that use ‘hostile architecture’ to discourage low income people or the homeless from entering certain areas. Just as welcoming gateways set an expectation of how one will feel and be treated in an area, so too can hostile gateways make people feel that they should hurry through an area or avoid it altogether.

This new condo block in Washington DC’s Navy Yard neighborhood provides privacy for its residents, but keeps others away with a lack of adjacent activities and a long exposed feeling sidewalk

Gateways are someone’s first interaction with a place, and can have a lasting impact on one’s relationship with it. While transitory, they still abide by the ideas of founding and preservation that the rest of a place experiences through their repetitive use and psychological connection to routines. Gateways, when treated as a place of welcoming and comfort can be a massive asset to any place, and help create an important sense of ease and familiarity once passed through.