Plan for an unbuilt house by the French architect Jacques-François Blondel, 1737. The house squeezes another interior into the interstices of the interior. All the rooms with a view outside can be reached from a hidden world in-between the walls of the main rooms. The source of this schematic is Three Doors to Other Worlds, an essay by Andrew Crompton, who notes that the house functions as a reverse panopticon: one can’t keep tabs on the people in the house without a watcher in every room. (The other other worlds include the edge over which it is impossible to look.)
Hidden rooms and secret passages are a very powerful literary theme. They’re a source of mystique, and to uncover a room between walls or a passage between passages is perhaps one of the closest things to magic one can experience in the modern world. I was reminded of Blondel’s reverse panopticon by this excellent metafilter thread about hidden rooms and dead spaces.
Hidden spaces are a favorite trope of murder mysteries and horror stories. In Lovecraft’s Rats in the Walls, the narrator finds a crypt deep beneath his family castle:
There now lay revealed such a horror as would have overwhelmed us had we not been prepared. Through a nearly square opening in the tiled floor, sprawling on a flight of stone steps so prodigiously worn that it was little more than an inclined plane at the centre, was a ghastly array of human or semi-human bones. Those which retained their collocation as skeletons shewed attitudes of panic fear, and over all were the marks of rodent gnawing. The skulls denoted nothing short of utter idiocy, cretinism, or primitive semi-apedom. Above the hellishly littered steps arched a descending passage seemingly chiselled from the solid rock, and conducting a current of air. This current was not a sudden and noxious rush as from a closed vault, but a cool breeze with something of freshness in it. We did not pause long, but shiveringly began to clear a passage down the steps. It was then that Sir William, examining the hewn walls, made the odd observation that the passage, according to the direction of the strokes, must have been chiselled from beneath.
The Dreams in the Witch House, too, is based around a hidden space. The central conceit of House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski’s infamously convoluted debut novel, is a house that is larger on the inside than on the outside. I bought it several years ago in one of those rare bookshops where the staff will spontaneously start conversations with you about the books you’re buying. “Excellent choice,” said the man behind the counter. “This one can be tough to finish, but putting in the effort is so worth it.” I thought he was exaggerating. I still haven’t finished reading it. House of Leaves, sadly, is as twisting and winding as the house it describes.
Harry Potter’s Hogwarts is seemingly nothing but secret passages and hidden spaces, constantly reconfiguring itself. Beyond the revolving bookcases of fiction, there are real-life hidden spaces like this 1950s subway passage, complete with period ads, or H. H. Holmes’s castle, custom-built with murderous intent.
I don’t know what it is that appeals so to the imagination about these spaces. Perhaps it’s the spirit of adolescent adventure. If you found a hidden space in your house, is there anyone out there who wouldn’t explore it?
Jan 16, 2012