Buildings have bodies complete with faces, skeletons, and footprints; and eyes, too, if you want to be lyrical about windows. They may also have respiratory and pulmonary systems; the networks of ducts and plumbing which keep substances circulating and the atmosphere pleasant. Place doorbells within these metaphors and they become, what? Sensory organs, of sorts: each a reactive node designed to alert the inside to what’s outside—a raw nerve. Apartment blocks will group them alongside one another, placing each unit’s nerve together into one convenient bundle at the entrance. There they wait for a visitor’s touch, desired and undesired alike. 

In Berlin, and throughout Germany, residential doorbells are not anonymous. Rather, each is accompanied by a small label, usually the surname of the current resident or residents. These Klingelschilder—doorbell signs—are de rigueur and, in some jurisdictions, mandatory. Locals say you’re not truly moved-in until you’ve pried open the plastic casing and placed your name there for all to see. It’s a surprising custom for a country with a generally strict sensibility about privacy. In large apartment blocks this practice results in a public directory, a spreadsheet-like grid of rows and columns at the door; an index of the lives inside.

Reading the labels is a delightful exercise all its own. Winzler, Hugo, Voit. A potpourri of names drawing from innumerable traditions. Propp, Sommer, Mendoza. Cast lists for unknown productions. Haselmayr, Goldstein, Davis. At a glance, one can get a quick impression of the sociological profile of a neighbourhood. Schukowski, Lee, Taylor-Moreau. In affluent Charlottenburg, we have the expected German classics. Schäfer, Hoffmann, Schulz. Down in Neukolln, a more diverse selection. Bardakci, Badawi, Iqbal. Some stand alone, others in pairs, a few labels are so crammed with names you wonder how their physical counterparts all share the space. Zhidkov, Haas, López-Svensson.

As with lightswitches, doorknobs, and other minor architectural elements, the design of doorbells and their interfaces can easily be overlooked. Though, careful attention reveals these tools to exhibit a rich aesthetic language of compositional and ornamental approaches. Some display modernist surfaces, clean and sleek with polished steel; others are dressy and ornate in the style of art nouveau. Many adopt the contours of regular geometry—sharp squares or rounded rectangles—fewer opt for striking asymmetry. There are those with demure circular buttons to be pushed with single delicate fingers; others with chunky, plastic pads recalling analog futurism of mid-century sci-fi set design. 

Of course, rarely do these designs remain pristine—these are functional objects occupying a highly trafficked and socially charged space. They are altered and amended; adjusted, intentionally and by chance. Occupants and passersthrough add their touch: makeshift labels and signs, slap-on stickers and stray advertisements, instructions for deliveries and admonishments for solicitors. Affixed with tape and glue, these accumulate in layers, full of mismatched fonts, handwritten scripts. The surrounding surfaces collect graffiti, too: illegible tags and political slogans, drawn, sprayed, and etched—a testament to Berlin's horror vacui. The result is a palimpsest, a collective collage, a Rauschenbergian combine that’s never complete. 

In Invisible Paris, Bruno Latour and Émilie Hermant ask if we should count all the gadgets among the citizens of a city. Humble objects, they say, bring forth habit, “a particular order, a distinct attribution, an authorization or prohibition, a promise or permission.” Without this legion of things—bollards, paving stones, pedestrian lights, rubbish bins, handrails, and yes, doorbells—lending their affordances and structure, urban life would be chaotic, a morass of thwarted effort and conflicting action. Imagine the scene: a building’s threshold, crowded with impatient callers, all pounding at the door, tossing pebbles at windows, shouting to residents, pleading for entry. 

The order that actually arises at doorbells is straightforward. Like a knock-knock joke, we all know the script: find the correct name, push the correct button, and await a response. Either the door unlocks with a mechanical buzz or the speaker crackles to life, a prompt to announce yourself and your business. Expected visitors with familiar voices can get by with a simple, “it’s me,” the phrase both a password and shibboleth. Still, the whole ordeal invites a range of affects: the relief of arrival, the impatience of waiting for admittance, the anticipation of what comes next. 

For a time, ringing doorbells was my business. I was a professional visitor, one of the few that people are always eager to see: a delivery cyclist. For residents, my buzz for entry announced the arrival of pho, or fried chicken, or mezze, or some other treat from the outside world. For me, their corresponding buzz—the one letting me in—meant I’d completed another order, and that I would soon be paid. I’d tromp inside, climb the stairs, and make the hand-off at the entrance of their flat. There, we finally meet—each of us primed for a reward, two Pavlovian dogs.

Newer buildings, and buildings recently renovated for wealthy transplants to fashionable neighbourhoods, sometimes sport a new feature. Above the doorbells, trained at face-level, there are cameras. Housed in bulbous domes or encased discreetly behind smoky panes, they look out, unblinking, recording anyone at the threshold. Pitched as safety and convenience, these smart devices are a cop at the door, digital sentries in a new era of distributed mass surveillance. Communities online share highlights of their voyeurism, posting clips of unusual visitors, suspicious figures, and other activity caught in the frame like its trail cam footage of creatures in the woods.

Birdwatchers say that picking up the hobby gives a new texture to daily life, a disposition to always be scanning the branches and eaves overhead for activity. Numismatists, too, claim that their collectors’ eye turns the basic act of receiving change into a chance to inspect, assess, and classify each coin. For better or worse, I’ve developed a similar sensitivity for doorbells, an appreciation of their details and differences. Walking through the city, it’s hard not to glance at each entryway. Sometimes, I must even pause to appreciate—or photograph—a peculiar arrangement of buttons or particularly well-composed hodgepodge of accumulated material.