(Way too much) On porches

Apartment porches

As a child, I lived in a house without porches, and spent much of my summers in a house with two porches. One functioned as an entry and utility room, and the other was a sun/screen porch, definitely part of the small cottage’s living area.

Neither had the architectural stature of the porches that are attached to each apartment in this enclave.

When I was younger, I would have loved to live in one of these upstairs apartments, to lounge and read and generally waste time in the shade above the street in the fresh air.

We generally use the term porch for a space that’s transitional between the building and the not-building. It’s from the Latin for colonnade, which refers to an architectural roof extention that offered the ability to walk along a building passing by each room without going through them, although stopping and sitting was an option. The walking action was more along the building, while our modern porches are more for crossing from outside the building to a doorway. At least that’s how it seems to me. The upstairs porches here are an exception, as they are intended to be a fresh-air room.

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