“Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” — Banksy
Banksy wasn’t talking about secret passageways or encrypted messages, but he might as well have been. Hidden spaces — whether carved into a cathedral wall, tucked behind a revolving bookshelf or folded deep inside someone’s memory — do both. They soothe those who need refuge while unsettling anyone left on the outside, guessing. In a culture where transparency is idolized but privacy is hoarded, hidden spaces feel almost rebellious. They carry the thrill of the forbidden and the comfort of the familiar, all at once.
This paradox — comfort and disturbance — captures our culture’s fascination with hidden spaces. Whether buried in our minds, carved into our architecture, encrypted in code or woven into art, the things we keep secret reveal more about us than the things we display.
As a forensic, I sometimes come across cases where a criminal defendant hides a memento or souvenir for personal gratification from their victim.
But concealment is not only for the criminally minded. I have also seen collections of mementos by survivors of loved ones whose memory so attached to their loved ones’ belongings they want to keep them in plain sight!
One such example, which stands out in my mind, were the parents of a son who died when trying to outrace a train in his car. He lost the race and was killed upon impact.
The surviving parents struggled every day when hearing the whistling sound at the railroad crossing where their son died, less than a mile away from their house.
In order to deal with their grief and wanting to be “close” to their son even after his passing, they took all of their son’s belongings and recreated his room in their new home about 10 miles away from the railroad crossing.
Psychologists like me, as well as historians and cultural theorists, have long recognized that the impulse to hide is both universal and profoundly human.
What parts of ourselves are hidden — not only from others, but from us? How do our hidden spaces shape how we live, love, guard ourselves and reveal — or conceal — the truths about ourselves?
The cultural construction of collections or mementos suggests that when we hide our treasures it is more than a personal phenomenon; it is symbolic, sometimes communal and often a historically layered phenomenon (Brown, Jamieson & Segal, 2024).
Across societies, secrecy operates as a form of social negotiation, shaping trust, identity and often power. As we explore the mental, architectural and cultural dimensions of concealment, one fact becomes clear: our hidden spaces are the mirrors of our inner thoughts, reflecting human anxieties, creativity and the expression of a profound tension between the object’s exposure and our need for privacy.
Psychology of Secrets and Concealment
As a psychologist I have come to realize that secrets are never silent. Even when unspoken, they stir beneath our consciousness, like underground aquifers beneath the strata of our thoughts. The secrets influence and shape how we feel, act and connect with others, even when we don’t want them affecting our everyday lives. “Psychology Today” reports that keeping a secret triggers cycles of rumination — mental rehearsals of “what if” scenarios — that can lead to stress, loneliness and even physical health symptoms (Bennett, 2024). We do not just hide information; we carry it like a yoke tethered to the secret we are struggling to keep hidden.
And yet, paradoxically, secrets also protect us. Kevin Bennett, Ph.D., writing in “Psychology Today” (2024), calls secrecy “the architecture of the self.”
It’s the way we draw boundaries between our public and private selves, what we allow others to know and what remains ours alone. Sometimes we keep secrets to shield loved ones. Sometimes we keep secrets to maintain control. Sometimes we keep secrets to keep the truth from ourselves and struggle with it until we are ready to face the fear of its public disclosure.
Recent studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Bianchi et al., 2024) reveal that personality factors shape how and why we conceal things. Introverts may guard private experiences to preserve the exhaustion brought on by the emotional energy of disclosure.
Extroverts, by contrast, often reveal selectively — choosing what to spotlight and what to obscure — crafting a public self while hiding a private core.
Neurodiverse individuals such as those on the Autism Spectrum Disorder continuum shift, stutter and struggle with how to communicate their feelings and not reveal their sense of embarrassment or vulnerability.
Secrets, the research suggests, are both universal and idiosyncratic: everyone keeps them, but the why and how differ profoundly.
Organizations like the CIA, NSA and FBI use secrecy as a currency. Commercial firms like Google, META and TESLA keep secrets as well.
A “Journal of Business Ethics” article on “Legitimating Organizational Secrecy” argues that in-groups often use hidden information as social glue. Shared secrets foster trust, define boundaries and spark creativity — think of tech firms with their confidential prototypes or intelligence agencies and classified operations. Secrecy builds identity as much as it guards content.
With humans however, secrets rarely stay confined to the mind. Like a microorganism struggling to break through a covered petri dish, it bursts through at the most unexpected times to break free from confinement.
“What is concealed internally seeks expression externally,” as spoken by the character Hunt Athalar in the fantasy novel “House of Earth and Blood” (2020) by Saraah Maas.
This is where psychology hands the baton to architecture. Our inner need for refuge, control or mystery often takes physical form. Private fears become locked doors, which for some become a rational for panic rooms. For others, desires for solitude become hidden gardens.
From medieval priest holes to Cold War bunkers, human history is dotted with structures that materialize the mind’s secret impulses.
Hidden Spaces in Architecture & Design
If the human mind is a house with many rooms, then architecture is where those mental blueprints take shape. Throughout history, the need to conceal, protect or mystify has left a physical legacy — hidden rooms, secret passageways, false walls — each reflecting the anxieties and aspirations of an architectural era.
During the Renaissance, Italian palaces boasted hidden staircases connecting private quarters. Cloisters contained concealed gardens, sanctuaries shielded from public eyes. The Vatican was designed with secret corridors, such as the Passetto di Borgo, which allowed Popes to escape danger unseen. It was part of a defensive structure that ran from the foot of the Vatican Hill to the Mausoleum of Hadrian, to protect the military camp that the barbarian Totila ( the final great king in Italy 541 to 552 CE) set up in this area of the city around 547. The building, modest in elevation and irregular in layout, was built with large squared blocks, partly still visible near Porta Castello. Around 852, Pope Leo IV (847-855) built a city wall, about 5 meters high, equipped with a walkway, to protect the basilica of St. Peter and the nearby buildings. It enabled the secret transport of important prisoners to the dungeons of Castel Sant’Angelo as well as a quick escape for the pope when he needed one.
Medieval England’s “priest holes” offered Catholic clergy refuge from Protestant persecution. Many remain undiscovered centuries later, highlighting both ingenuity and the perilous stakes of concealment.
In the 20th century, fear drove subterranean construction. Cold War bunkers from America’s Raven Rock Mountain Complex (a top-secret underground military and government bunker located near Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania, designed to function as a backup during national emergencies like a nuclear attack) to Britain’s Burlington Bunker (a secret 35-acre underground city built under Corsham, Wiltshire, during the Cold War to serve as a governmental survival center for up to 4,000 people in the event of a nuclear attack. Designed for self-sufficiency, the bunker featured offices, dormitories, hospitals and even a BBC studio). Concealment became continuity — safety enshrined in concrete. On a personal note, I once owned a house with an underground bunker, which was built at the height of the Cold war.
But hidden architecture also conveys whimsy and luxury. The Mansion on O Street in Washington, D.C., contains over 70 secret doors and passages, transforming spaces into interactive puzzles.
The mansion’s doors and passages along with a vast collection of memorabilia from its occupants like The Beatles’ John Lennon, and Rosa Parks, who lived there for a decade. It’s an experience where every item — from signed guitars to pop art — is for sale, and guests can tour the property, stay overnight or attend events in its unique environment.
“Architectural Digest” (2021) highlights high-end homes with rotating bookcases, biometric vaults and Bond-style panic rooms. Similarly, “The Times” (UK) reports a 21st century growing trend in concealed playrooms, offices and wine cellars — spaces designed for surprise and delight rather than necessity.
Urban hiddenness also thrives. Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt, in “The 99% Invisible City” (2020), note that cities are full of subtle “Easter eggs”: sealed subway stations, staircases leading nowhere and decorative manholes. Hidden architecture intersects with storytelling, creating spaces that tease, challenge and intrigue. The “Easter Eggs” in “The 99% Invisible City” are cleverly hidden design features and secret information concealed within the book’s physical layout and illustrations. They are not stories about design in the city itself, but rather meta-commentary and details included for the observant reader.
Historical and symbolic hiddenness appears in iconic structures: Gustave Eiffel’s secret apartment atop the Eiffel Tower (the apartment was a private sanctuary and laboratory designed by Eiffel for both personal enjoyment and scientific pursuits, allowing him to entertain distinguished guests, conduct scientific experiments and bask in the panoramic views of Paris. The apartment was a small, elegantly furnished space with a living area, office and grand piano, where Eiffel hosted notable figures like Thomas Edison).
Mount Rushmore had a Hall of Records, sealed from public view (is special because it’s a sealed repository containing historical documents and information about the monument’s creation, fulfilling the late sculptor Gutzon Borglum’s final vision for the project. Though incomplete and inaccessible, this repository houses porcelain enamel panels with the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights, a history of the U.S. and information about the mountain carving).
Hidden Spaces in Cultural Memory and Art
Beneath Paris lie the Catacombs, tunnels holding millions of bones — a city beneath a city. Will Hunt (Underground, 2019) describes the underground as reminding “us of what our ancestors always knew, that there is forever power and beauty in the unspoken and unseen.”
Hidden spaces function as life’s metaphors, amplifying meaning through inaccessibility.
Subterranean and sacred spaces, from catacombs to labyrinths in cathedrals, illustrate transformation through hiddenness.
Across time and medium, hidden spaces serve multiple purposes: protection and revelation, mystery and delight. They invite our engagement, curiosity and reflection.
Everyday Hidden Spaces
Hidden spaces exist in daily life — zippered pockets inside of pockets, secret drawers, hidden compartments in furniture and other micro-concealments.
The psychology behind these are more than functional according to James Brown, Anna Jamieson and Naomi Segal in their journal article in 2024. The cultural construction of hidden spaces: Essay’s on pockets, pouches and secret drawers. Hidden spaces reflect identity, control and social negotiation.
HGTV (2024) highlights suburban homes with bookcase art studios, staircase cubbies and lofted playrooms — modern equivalents of centuries-old, concealed spaces. As adults we delight in our wine cellars behind walls, hidden offices and secret closets.
The Paradox of Hiddenness
Hidden spaces balance empowerment and isolation. Secrets provide us with control, a sense of safety and autonomy on a personal, social and organizational level.
Yet secrecy can be burdensome. Extended concealment causes stress, rumination and social withdrawal. Michael Slepian 2024 in his article “The New Psychology of Secrecy” says keeping secrets can increase feelings of shame, isolation, uncertainty and inauthenticity.
Hidden spaces satisfy a myriad of desires, for privacy and safety and for discovery and connection. They comfort and empower, intrigue and challenge, all the while reflecting the multifaceted our engagement with concealment.
What do hidden spaces provide?
Oscar Wilde wrote, “Art is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force.” Hidden spaces assert identity, creativity and rebellion.
David Foster Wallace noted, “Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” Hiddenness performs the same dual function: providing solace and eliciting engagement.
We negotiate belonging, autonomy and vulnerability through what we hide and reveal. Secret rooms, thoughts and cultural artifacts map the contours of our humanity — layered, complex and endlessly compelling. Hidden spaces are, in every sense, mirrors of our innermost selves.
Thanks for reading the column. Please go to the AI website americanisraelite.com and post a comment.
Questions? Suggestions? Send me an email at drmanges@gmail.com. Be well. See you here next month. References on request.
