The word "gateway" is so loose, so undefinable. A gateway is not necessarily any of the things you first think of; there are so many possibilities tied up in the name. It is not merely an entrance, or even an opening. It may not even have a visible point at which you may pass through to what lies beyond. For example, there are a number of elemental barriers through which the human form may pass without any aperture: fog - in some places a real pea-souper can descend on you in moments, without warning encasing you, uncertain, shifting, glowing, cold; water - allows the diver to slip through the waves and create his own gate, only lasting for the moment of impact; smells - at the entrance to London Victoria station a specialist cosmetics company (no endorsement here!) has recently opened, creating a barrier of unseen but potent scent that every weary commuter must pass through two times a day; warmth - my first experience of Florida was leaving the air conditioned airport and being hit by incredible levels of humidity, causing my clothes to cling to me instantly. In its very simplest form a gateway can record or mimic the movement of the person entering by it, as the gate is left swinging in testimony. A gateway can even be a means of transportation: "the trains are the gateway to the city"
All of these interpretations and possibilities are what we are trying to understand in our first project welcoming in the new educational year. It amazes me that something so simple as a gateway can easily go unquestioned in our minds, leaving it as a meaningless entry to a house or such. There is just so much to even the simplest aspect of landscape architecture that can be utilised as a resource and it's our choice how far we delve in! This has to be one of the aspects that I love best about our profession.
Image from Flickr.com under search: wall of fog
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