Palladio Uno Solid - White - Swing

Here’s one very special interior door, the cornerstone of the Palladio collection of traditionally designed interior doors. As it is with all of the Palladio doors, the design was inspired by the great architect Andrea Palladio, the father of the eponymous architecture style. Made of natural wood, elegantly simple, easy on the eyes, and finished with the patina finish of your choice.

All Palladio interior doors are solid core. Here at Almes, this means that the fiberboard inside is made of natural wood fibers. Highly resistant to warping, the material also provides off the chart sound proofing and thermal insulation qualities. The veneer covering is then finished using traditional finishing methods (you pick the color) and gold or silver patina is then applied to the moldings by hand. That’s right: an actual artist applies it with a brush. The final product has a distinct Baroque feeling, which is in keeping with the main idea behind this interior door collection.

… Padua, the birthplace of Andrea Palladio, is a city in Northern Italy, some twenty-five miles west of Venice. It hosts the University of Padua, founded in the Thirteenth Century, where Galileo once lectured on geometry, mechanics, and astronomy while also making significant discoveries in fundamental science (kinematics of motion and astronomy) as well as applied science (strength of materials, the telescope, and some other things).

Straddling the Bacchiglione River whose various branches surrounded the ancient walls like a mote, the city is quite picturesque, with a dense network of arcaded streets opening into large squares, and a large number of bridges. The city is rumored to be the oldest in Northern Italy. Historians claim it once successfully repulsed Spartan, Etruscan, and Gallic invasions, and formed an alliance with the Romans in the Third Century B.C. against common enemies (including, one must hasten to add, Carthage). Even though it was gradually assimilated into the Roman Republic, the denizens of the city had the reputation for bravery and love of independence.

It is often said that Palladio’s works “have been valued for centuries as the quintessence of High Renaissance calm and harmony.”

To be sure, the basic elements of Italian Renaissance structure, including Doric columns, lintels, cornices, loggias, pediments and domes had already been used before Palladio. His contribution was to refine, simplify, and use them in innovative ways.

His style employed a classical repertoire of elements in new ways. Each part of the building has a function, and this function is clearly expressed by its form, particularly the ceremonial floor known as the piano nobile. Even though he specialized in villas and palaces, he insisted on simplifying the forms, as attested by Villa Capra “La Rotonda,” with all those perfectly square facades surrounding the circular dome and interior (something you must see next time you visit there).

Even though inspired by classical Roman architecture, Palladio did not imitate it outright. Rather, he juxtaposed the ideas of antiquity to those of High Renaissance builders, who at that time (he felt) were already paying too much attention to ornamentation and too little to the overall harmony of the project.

This is a bit tricky. Isn’t White the default finish that would look great on any interior door? Well, not quite.

W. is the color most often associated with perfection, honesty, cleanliness, newness, neutrality, and exactitude. The pigment has been known and used by humans since prehistoric times. In ancient Egypt, W. symbolized purity. Roman patricians paraded around in W. togas to distinguish themselves from the common folk. It was the color of choice of French monarchs. Architects of all epochs used W., with considerable enthusiasm, in various projects and for various reasons. In the United States, architects favored it when designing churches, capitols, and municipal buildings – which is, in fact, a tradition they inherited from classical and Renaissance architecture. According to some experts, most of the buildings in the celebrated Forum were either made of, or clad in, W. marble. In Taoism, it represents the yang or masculine energy, one of the two complementary natures of the universe. Many authors, both classical and contemporary, have referred to W. as a sign of purity, either physical (like William Shakespeare, whose treacherous usurper monarch wishes a heavenly rain would cleanse his blood-stained hand, washing it “white as snow”) or spiritual (like Tennessee Williams, who named his lead character Blanche (derived, incidentally, from the Germanic word blanc)) as a symbol of her innocent child-like spirit, perceptible from the moment she makes her first entrance (through the interior door stage-left).

Back in the Seventeenth Century, Sir Isaac Newton discovered that sunlight is composed of light with wavelengths across the visible spectrum which the human eye perceives as W. It is the lightest of the spectrum, and achromatic (hue-less) to boot, because it fully reflects and scatters all visible wavelengths of light, absorbing none. W. objects stand out in the dark. Depending on the surroundings, an interior door with W. finish might come off as emphatic or tactful, dominant or complementary. It blends seamlessly into most types of decor and, once the owner’s needs and disposition are taken into account, can symbolize - oh, so many different things, while bringing back a myriad memories: from those glorious snowy Alpine slopes and peaks to the fluffy tops of the wayward herd of cumulus cloud heap over the horizon on a balmy afternoon in the Caribbean. Tropical sand beaches are W. due to the high quantity of calcium carbonate they get from tiny bits of seashells ground to powder by the waves. In a number of cultures W. can also symbolize festivity, and be used lavishly to brighten up weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries. It is beautiful. Make sure it goes well with your interior door model, though.