Besides enjoying grand panoramas of a city, I think it’s good to look at the smaller things, too. It’s often these that makes a place interesting and reveal a lot about its character. Details of architecture are among these facets, providing a sense of style, color, sometimes even grace.
My wife has been taking pictures of doors for years (I’m trying to get her to sit down and post some of these images on TravelGumbo because she has an interesting collection — maybe someday). I have to confess to being sensitized to entryways by her careful eye. In modern towns and cities, doors tend to be fairly ugly things — prefabricated, mass-produced, often of low quality. They lack character. That’s not at all true of older buildings and older cities, like many of those in Europe, and it’s certainly not true of Charleston. Here the doors are interesting, most custom crafted for that building.
My wife didn’t make this journey to Charleston with me, so in her place I documented some of those doorways that most interested me. As you can see they vary significantly, from small and functional to large and ornate.
Here then is a gallery of ‘Doors of Charleston’:
Never given much attention to doors…until now.
Very nice!
I think a door can tell its own story too…well done, Dr F
To alter a trite expression so it fits here: The delight is in the details!
Thanks for the great collection and for the promise of more doors in the future…
I love doors, too. Most of these are familiar; the first one belongs to a dear friend, now departed. On a rainy day in Charleston, I very much enjoyed the walk downtown without leaving my comfy home.
Los Portales. Always fun to see the entries and exits of our lives so concretely displayed and yet so enigmatic.
This on a doorway in Liverpool UK:
The very last act of the American civil war – Captain Waddell of the CCS Shenandoah (built in the UK), walking up the steps of Liverpool Town Hall surrendering his vessel to the Lord Mayor, after sailing ‘home’ from Alaska to surrender.
The shipping offices in Rumford Place Liverpool were the Embassy of the Confederate States during the American Civil War.
The CCS Shenandoah was the only Confederate ship to circumnavigate the world.