When Doors Are Removed for Our Own Safety: The Material Semiotics of Telephone Booths

As a twentieth-century design staple, the telephone booth encompasses architecture, urban planning, and communication technologies. I aim to establish a material semiotics of the historical artefact by considering a case study of a 1980s controversy in Copenhagen involving the “failed” Question Mark. By drawing on ANT (actor-network theory), I identify three “matters of concern” at play in the controversy: terrorism, disability, and Danish Design. In the analysis, a multiplicity of human and non-human actors are shown to act in the ongoing process of designing for public spaces.