Arrivals, Public and Private
A World Series parade changes the urban experience. The passage becomes the plot. Streets fill with people and become vast open-air rooms. This all became apparent today as I joined the crush of fans along Market Street to watch the San Francisco Giants ride by. The constant high-spirited clamor broadened into a roar every time an open-topped bus — one for every two baseball players —
appeared. Buster Posey got a big roar but when Hunter Pence, arms outstretched and visible just to the right of the passing tree in the photo above, led the entire intersection around Montgomery Street in a big booming Giants cheer it was deafening. Though he was gliding along everything stopped as the crowds on
sidewalks and those who climbed stop lights, newspaper stands, kiosks, and
trees, along with spectators on the roof terraces and cornice-level balconies of surrounding buildings, joined in. The eminent architecture critic Paul Goldberger has said that ultimately a city’s streets are more important than its buildings — and today that rang especially true. It was the street that celebrated the sense of arrival, in a pageant as old as Ancient Greece or China. It’s not just for defense and toll-taking that great cities like Paris and Rome built grand gateways across key streets; these streets celebrated the culture’s triumphs and occasionally their tragedies.
Houses also celebrate arrival, or passage, though obviously on a more private scale in the way they address the street and shape or shelter the front door. And as we move past Halloween and on toward the holiday entertaining season, front doors become especially important. So here are some entries that make crossing 
the threshold something to celebrate. The doorway of this courtyard house in Northern California’s wine country, by Charles Barnett, is part trellis, part open-air gallery, with a vista right through the house to the other side. In a very sleek
geometric modern house at Fukuyama, Japan, by UID Architects, the large
diagonal arm of the carport doubles as the front gateway. The automobile scale of the carport — which is also very finely detailed — lends grandeur to the pedestrian entrance just inside, noted as “E.” on the floor plan.
Arrival need not be elaborate; sometimes an elemental canopy will do, as Melbourne architect Leon Meyer shows in this design, which is our Plan 496-18.
Everything is in its place, with an open door protected from the weather, and a design that simply say welcome. You’re a winner — do come in!
