In an urban context, a front door can act as a threshold between the private and collective spheres, between the personal story of those who live in a home and the shared life of the city. It is precisely from this idea that Front Door Cabinet was born, a project created by the Dutch design duo Paul&Albert on commission from the municipality of Assen, in the north of the Netherlands.
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Conceived as both a functional piece of furniture and a narrative object, the cabinet takes shape from an assemblage of silhouettes and fragments inspired by residential front doors. Panels, proportions, and details typical of domestic facades are deconstructed and recomposed to create a structure that recalls the imagery of city doors, each one different from the next, each with its own character and story.
The project was created with a clear purpose: to collect and organize materials, tools, and methods used by the municipality in public communication and citizen engagement initiatives. Inside the cabinet are devices and resources designed to facilitate dialogue with the city’s different communities, allowing each initiative to be adapted to its specific context and the people involved.
When opening the cabinet’s inner doors, a series of photographic portraits of Assen residents is revealed. The images symbolically refer to the people living behind the many doors across the city, reminding us how every home represents a unique world. To protect residents’ privacy, these portraits do not appear in the publicly released photographs of the project.
Front Door Cabinet thus becomes both a practical working tool and a tangible metaphor for the relationship between the administration and its citizens. An object that, much like a door, does not separate but connects: institutions and residents, public space and domestic life, the city’s projects and the stories that lie behind every entrance in Assen.
