At the threshold (Japan, Kyoto)

In Kyoto, vernacular architecture cultivates the art of the threshold. Neither inside nor outside: the narrow corridors, noren (door curtains), and hanging lanterns signal not a place, but a passage—a space of transition toward the invisible, the hushed, the intimate. Wood is omnipresent, not for its raw beauty, but for its ability to absorb noise, filter light, and slow the pace.

This use of “ma” (間) — the interval — is at the heart of Japanese aesthetics: it is not about occupying space, but about letting it breathe , about creating an inhabited void. In Kyoto, the most precious addresses are not displayed. They are guessed. Kaiseki restaurants, tea houses, or confidential ryokan exist only for those who know how to recognize the discreet signs: an engraved ideogram, a lit lamp, a smell of heated cedar.

Here, the welcome begins long before the door. It begins in the silence of the wood and in the weathered light of a lantern, which shows nothing—but indicates everything.

This photograph was selected by the prestigious international gallery 1X.com, which recognizes works for their aesthetic and documentary value.