Federico Sirianni, a singer-songwriter from Turin, Italy, used to play small concerts in his neighborhood. But when he recently joined fellow musician Federica Magliano to play a live concert on the balconies of their building for their quarantined neighbors, things turned out differently.
“You could really feel a sense of wonder among those watching us from the balconies,” said Sirianni. “Many people thanked us for making them feel less alone.”
Like millions of Italians, Sirianni has been confined to his home since the country issued a national ban on March 9 to slow the spread of the coronavirus. And, like millions of people in urban centers around the world whose governments have imposed similar measures, Sirianni rediscovers his balcony as a link with the outside world and a source of hope and connection in times of forced isolation.
Balconies remind people of the importance of looking outside and connecting with something bigger than themselves
In the past month, quarantined Italians have sat on their balconies to sing the national anthem in unison, launch fireworks, sing opera and cheer medical workers to strengthen the collective morale of the country. Many of these public pandemic practices have spread rapidly around the world. Now, as more than half the population of the planet is in some form of state mandated social distancing, from balconies from Madrid to Mumbai, Chicago in Zhejiang and Hamburg in Alexandria suddenly take center stage and remind people of the importance of looking outside and connecting with something bigger than themselves.
Yet despite the seemingly new cultural importance of balconies, these ancient platforms have long been used to captivate, unify and inspire the masses. After all, it was on a balcony in Verona where Shakespeare envisioned one of the most famous romantic scenes in Western literature. It was on a balcony in Cape Town where a newly released Nelson Mandela watched the masses and promised a new chapter in South African history. And it’s from a balcony in the Vatican where the Pope still blesses millions of believers every Sunday.
Balconies have been a staple of architecture for thousands of years and their roles have evolved to adapt to local cultures and customs over the centuries.
In her book Sunlight and Shade in the First Cities, urban archaeologist Mary Shepperson suggests that the balconies could date back to 3000 BC in Iran, where the ancient Mesopotamians built overhanging parapets to protect the street from the scorching sun. However, in 1400 BC, many historians believe that the Mycenaeans had started to build balconies in what is today Greece for the opposite purpose: to increase natural light and ventilation of the air.
In Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization, British archaeologist Barry Kemp describes how “palace balconies” were designed as a “theatrical setting” for leaders to appear before their subjects. This practice has since echoed countless times throughout history. In ancient Rome, one of the first balconies, the maenianum, was an open air platform for emperors and senators to watch gladiators face off at the Colosseum and be seen by the public. At the start of World War II, Adolf Hitler announced the annexation of Austria from the balcony of the imperial palace in Vienna. And seven years later, Winston Churchill joined the British royal family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to celebrate the end of the war.
As balconies evolved, their designs became more elaborate. Beginning in the Middle Ages, locked up mashrabiya balconies with ornate trellises were built in much of the Arab world to allow residents to enjoy the cool breeze while respecting Islamic privacy laws. During the Renaissance, balconies with balustrades became a staple of many Italian buildings after the architect Donato Bramante unveiled the design of his Palazzo Caprini linked to the railing in Rome.
Venice was particularly famous for its many balconies, as architects were looking for ways to provide access to fresh air in a cramped city. For visitors to northern Europe, these framed platforms often looked like exotic oddities: in his 1611 travelogue, Coryat’s Crudities, British traveler Thomas Coryat explains that it is only in Italy that he had observed the existence of “small terraces” whose purpose was to let people “contemplate and see the parts of the city which surround them in the madman [sic] evening.”
For visitors to northern Europe, these framed platforms often looked like exotic oddities
Colonization finally took over the world. Today, the emblematic closed balconies of Malta and the similarly closed balconies in Andalusia, Spain, are probably influenced by the former Moorish owners of the territories. In turn, the wrought iron balconies found from Hanoi to New Orleans are from their former French rulers.
In the 19th century, Europe experienced a period of intense urbanization and balconies subsequently became symbols of a modern metropolitan lifestyle, inspiring many writers, poets and artists. The French painter Eduard Manet scandalized with his 1869 work Le Balcon, with his portrait of city dwellers looking at street life from a balcony provoking a critic to proclaim “Close the shutters!”. Italian painter Umberto Boccioni portrays the intensity of twentieth-century urban life in his 1911 work, The Street Entrers The House, where street noise and chaos seem to enter the private space of a house through the balcony.
Balconies act as threshold spaces that connect public and private life
According to Sheila Crane, chair of the Department of Architectural History at the University of Virginia, part of our collective fascination with balconies lies in their unique position as gateways. “The balconies act as preliminary spaces that join public and private life,” she said, citing a line from the 1992 book by French sociologist Henri Lefebvre Rhythmanalysis, where it honors the “wonderful invention of the balcony” as the place where we can better grasp the “ephemeral rhythms of urban life”.
In cities on the other side of the Mediterranean, these “ephemeral rhythms” inspired by balconies were often immortalized in 20th century art. In the 1960 film From a Roman Balcony, a conversation on a balcony leads to an epic love story. In an ode to Tel Aviv, the refrain from the 1961 Israeli hit song Mirspot (Balcons) says: “balcony facing balcony … it’s a city of balconies”. And in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels that take place in the 1950s, the balconies often serve as scenes that blur the boundaries between public and private life.
Yet, in addition to their cultural significance, balconies have often served as spaces to initiate political change. During Algeria’s War of Independence with France in the 1950s and 1960s, balconies became the scene of independent mass protests after the government banned public gatherings. As Crane explains, women separatists went out on balconies and sang ululations – a series of high-pitched sounds used to express collective mourning – while those in favor of France occurred pan concerts, concerts using pots and pans as instruments.
Watching people from the balconies was an evening hobby until the advent of television
These coordinated performances recall the social and theatrical roles that balconies have historically played. “Until the advent of television, watching people from the balconies was an evening pastime,” said Carolin Aronis, a scholar and lecturer at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who spent years researching the balconies of Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean. “But technologies such as the telephone, television and air conditioning have gradually brought people inside.” According to Aronis, in the past 50 years, balconies around the world have lost part of the role they once played in urban life.
But today, the forced isolation of the coronavirus pandemic somewhat creates a new unifying experience. Like much of the quarantine of the world at home, there are countless examples of balcony culture bringing people together and providing a source of connection.
The forced isolation of the coronavirus pandemic somewhat creates a new unifying experience
“I have lived in this apartment for three years and have never really interacted with my neighbors,” said Antonia De Zarlo, a 28-year-old medical student in Florence. From the start of Italy’s foreclosure, De Zarlo said that she had spent many afternoons sipping coffee and chatting with her neighbors from her balcony. On March 23, the day of her university diploma, her neighbors surprised her by passing a laurel wreath and a gift bag using the stick of a broom. De Zarlo’s Facebook post describing his surprise ceremony quickly went viral.
“Today, technology no longer keeps people away from balconies,” said Aronis. “It helps people to rediscover them as social spaces.”
Indeed, thanks to social media, balcony artists can now count on physical and virtual spectators. When Siranni played his first quarantine concert on March 16, around 3,000 people joined via Facebook Live from around the world. “We had virtual neighbors sending us messages on social media and physical messages slamming from their balconies,” he said.
The quarantine will be over and everything will be fine again, but we must not forget this sense of community
Rosalba Durante, a retiree from Turin, is working on a pulley system to allow food to pass to her neighbors. “The idea started when a neighbor texted the WhatsApp group in our building saying that she wanted to share a cake baked by her daughter,” she said. “We realized that we would all benefit from sharing food and other items directly on the balconies.” The Durante pulley project currently involves five other neighbors. “We are all struggling right now,” she said. “It is important to find ways to have fun together.”
Similar scenes have started to play out in cities around the world. Beth Poe and her 38-year-old husband Joe live under quarantine in different areas of the same retirement home in New Orleans. The two now connect via a balcony in a quarantine version of Romeo and Juliet: Beth stands in the parking lot, while Joe sits in his wheelchair on a balcony on the third floor. In Madrid, residents of the Hotaleza district organize bingo tournaments on the balconies. Residents of Indian cities organize balcony concerts using pots and pans – much like the women of Algeria did over 50 years ago.
Aronis hopes that these moments of connection will lead us to re-appreciate balconies as social spaces long after the end of the quarantine. “The balconies offer something that digital technologies cannot: a sense of community and an authentic feeling of defending oneself,” she said.
De Zarlo echoes this feeling. “The quarantine will be over and everything will be fine again,” she said, “but we must not forget this sense of community.”
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