ABSTRACT
During the eighteenth century, Denis Diderot wrote about the apparent opposition between two spaces of representation: the salon and the stage. Whereas the salon was a place governed by sensitivity and encouraged conversations aimed at expressing the cleverness and refinement of those involved, the stage demanded amplified and often exaggerated gestures to attain a desired dramatic effect. In 1757, these two modes of social interaction found a point of convergence in Le Fils naturel, a play in which Diderot himself pretended to be the sole spectator of a family drama, hidden in a corner of the room. The new paradigm embodied by the drame bourgeois gave predominance to the private realm. The architectural world embraced this new form of performance in the design of public theatres with devices that allowed spectators to witness the action without being seen or recognized. It also infiltrated domestic architecture with peepholes and trapdoors introduced in private residences to observe without being seen the movements of one’s guests, the choreographed needs of a patron or even the secret life of a neighbor. This chapter looks at eighteenth-century apparatuses for seeing without being seen that changed the modes of interaction between individuals in society.
