Doors of Turin
Where I'm from, I'm used to these kinds of doors:
Here are the magnificent doors I saw in Turin, Italy:
Notice the smaller door cutout inside the big door.
Also has a smaller door. It looks like the only doorknob is for the smaller one.
Located outside the Teatro Carignano.
Windows!
It seems like a lot of doors were designed for their specific doorway. For this one, you can see that the decorative features match the curve of the doorway's top half.
What are the metal pieces in the bottom corners of the doorway? Do they serve a purpose or are purely decorative?
Some are newer with ornate carvings...
Others are simple and worn.
This made me think:
- How old are they?
- How do you get one? I assume I can't just go to Home Depot's website and search for "big wooden door with ornate carvings."
- The big doors have little doors!
Granted, most of these doors were designed to accommodate cars-sized objects, so they're larger than standard suburban American front doors. Typically they led into an interior courtyard, and occasionally I'd see see cars driving in and out. A bit unexpected for me at first — I'm used to sheet metal garage doors that go up and down, not ornate solid wood. People used the little doors-within-doors when they didn't need the full big door.
It's sort of amazing the variation we get across countries and cultures. Doors generally serve the same purpose regardless of where you live, and yet we see lovely variations in their design. Even the ones in Turin were all fairly different from each other, with different designs and dimensions.
I was also shocked by the doors in Barcelona and Berlin — more on that soon.