The Berlin Key

"The Berlin key or how to do words with things" is an essay by sociologist Bruno Latour that originally appeared as La clef de Berlin et autres leçons d'un amateur de sciences, La Découverte, in 1993.

It was later published as the first chapter in P.M. Graves-Brown's Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture.

[1][2] In the P.M. Graves-Brown version, Lydia Davis translated the piece into English.

Latour argues that while an object's purposefully designed material nature may recommend or permit a highly controlled set of functional purposes, it may also offer a broad range of valuable possibilities.

[2][3] Latour uses the Berlin key to show that there are social constraints which force people to do whatever it is that the object makes them do; thus, the object (the Berlin key) is a sign, of sorts, telling the inhabitants to "lock their doors at night, but never during the day.