ABSTRACT
Architecture might be described as the art of the in-between. Since ancient times architects have been aware of the possibilities of making spaces within walls. Intramural spaces are never quite of the interior nor the exterior. To be experienced as in-between spaces they would need windows to see outside as well as doorways to see in. Fortifications require thick walls for defence and stability. The walls are so thick that it is possible to create rooms within them. All walls retain as well as contain: they retain an interior to prevent it spilling out into the exterior. Fortresses and monasteries are built to identify, maintain and protect particular ways of life and ideologies in contradistinction to their less convinced surroundings. Their relationships with the outside world may be different: fortresses are for the military domination where monasteries frame religious segregation.
