There’s something thrilling and transgressive about looking through the window of a stranger’s house: It’s a rare insight into how other people really live their lives when they think no one is watching. Voyeuristic as it may seem, there’s something to be gained from seeing and being seen in our private spaces—a sense of communion with strangers, that feels particularly necessary in big cities. 

In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 thriller Rear Window, this enforced closeness becomes a metaphor for the voyeurism of urban confinement, and the moral responsibility—or lack thereof—between neighbors. Jeff, a wounded documentary photographer, takes to looking out of his Manhattan apartment window and studying his neighbors to pass the time until he can work again. He observes a composer obsessively playing the same song over and over, a ballet dancer who dances rather than walks around her apartment and a lonely woman who holds dinner parties with imaginary guests. He eventually becomes suspicious that one neighbor has murdered his wife, and the unwritten rule of nonintervention reaches its breaking point: “I’ve seen it through that window,” he says, trying to convince some visitors of his theory. He pieces together the evidence needed for a search warrant, the piece of paper that allows the otherwise unpardonable act of entering another’s home.  

The cultural trope of looking through a window trades on the idea that it’s a morally questionable act. But what happens when the secretive element is removed? In the Netherlands, looking into people’s windows is embedded in the culture. The Calvinist religious society, which began in the 16th century with Protestant reformer John Calvin, expounded the idea that citizens should not have anything to hide from God and therefore from their neighbors, and curtains became associated with an anti-religious spirit. To this day, you can wander the rows of canal houses in Amsterdam and see hardly a single curtain. Looking in through windows has become something of a pastime for those strolling along the canals at night.

With countless new ways to “spy” on one another in contemporary society, the window is a less vital channel into the lives of others. But few things carry the subversive thrill of peeking into an unknown kitchen or living room, even if you’re more likely to pick up interior design tips than the key to solving a murder.