I was watching 12 Angry Men, which was made in 1957; and they show this floor plan of an apartment:
My main question is, what's the opening in the wall between the hallway and the main room? It looks like it ought to be a door, but it's shown using a window symbol. Why?
(Edit: I didn't emphasize enough - that opening really, really ought to be a door. If it's not, then I want to know why an apartment would be designed with the front door opening into the bedroom.)
(This is shown as an exhibit in a murder case, and they spend a fair amount of time discussing how long it would take a man to get from the bed in the upper right to the front door in the lower left. They all assume that he uses the bedroom door in the lower right and runs all the way down the hall. Going through the living room would involve more doors but be a straighter line, but no one mentions the possibility. Normally I'd attribute that to lazy writing, but with the way it's drawn it made me wonder.)
I'm also curious about two other things:
1) The double wall between the bedroom and the living room. I guess the space in between is used as closets, but they would be very oddly shaped; about 5' deep and 3' wide. That would be very difficult to use - a normal closet is about 2' deep, while a walk-in closet needs to be at least 4.5' wide. A more normal design, today at least, would be to make the closets open into the bedroom.
2) Why the hallway extends all the way to the right. It's not providing access to anything but the man's bedroom (ie there aren't any other apartments), so why wouldn't the bedroom go down all the way to the bottom wall? It'd be four feet wider that way, and could still open into the hallway.
The answers to those two questions could be structural. You can see I've already done a fair amount of speculating here - I'm hoping someone who knows something about midcentury architecture can give me a more definitive answer, especially about the mystery opening in the living room.
(Edit: So, one of two questions has to be answered:
- Why is a door drawn as a window? I don't buy plain blundering, because even someone who doesn't know anything about architecture could tell the difference between the door and window symbols.
- OR why would anyone, ever, design an apartment with the front door opening into the bedroom? Such a bizarre layout would reduce the amount of rent you could charge by so much that the trivial cost of turning the hallway window into a door would pay for itself within a couple of months.)