The Double-key

This newsletter summarizes Bruno Latour's essay "How To Do Words With Things," which uses the Berliner Doppelschlüssel, a double-key used in Berlin apartment buildings for much of the 20th century, to argue that social rules can be built into physical objects. Latour describes the key's system of special locks, resident keys and a concierge's master key, which together require residents to lock the street door at night and leave it unlocked during the day. He argues the system is a hybrid of social and technical elements that enforces order more reliably than notices, while remaining fragile, since a master key or a filed-down lip can bypass it. The essay was first published in French in Alliages in 1990.