Like everything else, interior doors can be new, old, and old-fashioned. The latter is also known as retro – sometimes, which is, when all is said and done, a euphemistic substitute for outdated. This is something to be avoided in interior door manufacturing.
There is an enormous difference between old-fashioned and old things. The latter go by a number of pleasant-sounding, enticing terms such as antique, traditional, classic, time-tested, timeless, and so forth. Things that stand the test of time – fashions, architecture, interior doors, statues, paintings, etc., can only gain in value as the years go by. Some of them become priceless; others – as in the case of certain buildings – become designated historic landmarks, a form of protection the architectural committee extends over them against developers’ plans, which is a wonderful endeavor whose purpose is not just to preserve the history of a city, but also to make sure that beautiful things do not get destroyed in a building boom du jour.
The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities. It was a part of the progressive social reform movement in North America under the leadership of the upper- middle class concerned with poor living conditions in all major cities. The movement, which was originally associated mainly with Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City and Washington, D.C., promoted beauty not only for its own sake, but also to create moral and civic virtue among urban populations. Advocates of the philosophy believed that such beautification could promote a harmonious social order that would increase the quality of life. They were quite right.
Instant landmarks suddenly arouse everywhere. The style employed by the movement was a combination of Beaux-Arts and neoclassical (both owing much to the works of Andrea Palladio). In New York, the grand arch and colonnade on the Chinatown side of the Manhattan Bridge were added as part of that movement. It serves no practical purpose whatsoever: its function is to please the eye, no more and no less.
… Now, patina, a thin layer that forms on the surface of copper, brass, bronze, certain stones, and wooden furniture, including certain types of interior doors (the sheen produced by age, wear, and polishing) can be, and oftentimes is, viewed as Father Time’s stamp of approval. There are two types: acquired, i.e. forming naturally through oxidation or other chemical processes) and applied, i.e. added deliberately by the craftsman with an eye to imparting to his creation that magnificent timeless look – as is the case with this entire interior door collection. Once the traditional finish has been applied (white, in this case), our specialist comes over with a bunch of brushes and adds the gold patina to the moldings, using traditional painting methods, including glazing (adding transparent layers on top of each other). Because the Palladio interior door series is a classically designed one, the creators felt they might as well emphasize its timelessness using this method.
