Arikah Map

Door

This article is about the architectural element. For the rock band, see The Doors.
Door:The front door of a house is often decorated to appear inviting.
Enlarge
The front door of a house is often decorated to appear inviting.

A door is a generally floor-length opening in a wall (or other partition), often equipped with a hinged or sliding panel which can be moved to leave the opening accessible, or to close it more or less securely. Doors are nearly universal in structures of all kinds (especially houses and other buildings), allowing passage between inside and outside, or among internal rooms. Doors are also found in vehicles, cupboards, cages, etc.

The purpose of a door opening is:

The purpose of a door closure is:

Doors and doorways can also appear in metaphorical or mystical situations; for example, a spiritualist might speak of "opening a door to the other world".Doors can have ritual purposes (one example concerns the doorkeeping duties of the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod).

The term door can refer either to the opening or to the movable panel or panels which closes it. The term doorway can be used to refer specifically to the opening. When framed in wood for snug fitting of a door, the doorway consists of two vertical jambs on either side, a lintel or head jamb at the top, and perhaps a threshold at the bottom. When a door has more than one movable panel, one of the panels may be called a leaf.

See door furniture for a discussion of attachments to doors such as doorhandles and doorknobs.


Contents

Types of doors

Door:A decorated door from the Tibetan Namdroling monastery, southern India.
Enlarge
A decorated door from the Tibetan Namdroling monastery, southern India.

A door may slide or rotate. Sometimes a door, though not just sliding, stays parallel to the wall while opening and closing.

Sliding is usually horizontal. In opened position the door may be exposed on one side; a person leaning on that side when the door is closed, can be hurt when the door is opened. Also an object can obstruct the door. Sometimes the door is constructed such that in closed state the sliding door forms a smooth continuation of the wall, e.g. in the case of a sliding side door of a vehicle.

The door may also slide between two panels (pocket door).

In the case of rotation, the axis of rotation is usually vertical, but e.g. for garage doors often horizontal, above the door opening. Sometimes the axis of rotation is, with a special construction, not in the plane of the door, on the other side than that in which the door opens, to reduce the space required on the side to which the door opens. This is sometimes the case in a train, for the door to the toilet, opening inward.

Many kinds of doors have specific names, depending on their purpose. The most common variety of door consists of a single rigid panel that fills the doorway, hinged along one side so that it can fold away from the doorway in one direction but not in the other. Many variations on this basic design are possible, such as "double" doors that have two adjacent independent panels hinged on each side of the doorway.

A trapdoor is a door that is oriented horizontally in a floor or ceiling, often accessed via a ladder.

A stable door is divided in half horizontally. The top half can be opened to allow the horse to be fed, while the bottom half can be closed to keep the animal inside. Stable doors are also known as dutch doors.

A swing door has special hinges that allow it to open either outwards or inwards, and is usually sprung to keep it closed. Saloon doors are a pair of lightweight swing doors often found in public bars. Saloon doors, also known as cafe doors, often use double action hinges, which will return the door to the center, regardless of which direction it is opened, due to the double action springs in the doors.

A blind door is a door with no visible trim or operable components, it is designed to blend with the adjacent wall in all finishes, visually to be a part of the wall, a diguised door.

An up-and-over door is often used in garages. Instead of hinges it has a mechanism, often counterbalanced or sprung, that allows it to be lifted so that it rests horizontally above the opening. Also known as an overhead door.

A barn door is a door on a barn. It is often/always found on barns, and because of a barn's immense size (often) doors are subsequently big for utility.

A French door, also called a French window, is a door that has multiple windows ("lights") set into it, the full length of the door. Traditional French doors are assembled from individual small pieces of glass and mullions. These doors are also known as true divided lite[sic] French doors. French doors made of double-pane glass (on exterior doors for insulation reasons) may have a decorative grille embedded between the panes, or may also be true divided lite French doors. The decorative grille may also be superimposed on top of single pane of glass in the door.

A louver door has fixed or movable wooden fins (often called slats or louvers) which permit open ventilation whilst preserving privacy and preventing the passage of light to the interior. Being relatively weak structures, they are most commonly used for wardrobes and drying rooms, where security is of less importance than good ventilation, although a very similar structure is commonly used to form window shutters.

A flush door is a completely smooth, panelled door, having plywood or MDF fixed over a light timber frame, the hollow parts of which are often filled with a cardboard core material. Flush doors are most commonly employed in the interior of a dwelling, although slightly more substantial versions are occasionally used as exterior doors, especially within hotels and other buildings containing many independent dwellings.

A ledge and brace door is a door made from multiple vertical planks fixed together by two horizontal planks (the ledges) and kept square by a diagonal plank (the brace).

Door:Mechanism of the sliding door of a lift
Enlarge
Mechanism of the sliding door of a lift

A garden door is any door that opens to a garden or backyard. It is often used specifically for double French doors in place of a sliding glass door. In such a configuration, it has the advantage of a very large opening for moving large objects in and out.

A pet door is an opening in a door to allow pets to enter and exit without the main door being opened. It may be simply covered by a rubber flap or it may be an actual door hinged on the top that the pet can push through. Pet doors may be mounted in a sliding glass door as a new (permanent or temporary) panel. Pet doors may be unidirectional, only allowing pets to exit. Pet doors may be electronic, only allowing pets with a special electronic tag to enter.

A bifold door is door unit that has 2 to 4 sections, folding in pairs. The doors can open from either side for one pair, or fold off both sides for two pairs. Wood is the most common material, and doors may also be metal or glass. Bifolds are most commonly made for closets, but may also be used as units between rooms.

A bypass door is a door unit that has 2 or more sections. The doors can slide from each direction on an overhead track, sliding past each other. They are most commonly used in closets, in order to access one side of the closet at a time. The doors in a bypass unit will overlap slightly, in order not to have a gap between them.

A pocket door is a door that slides on rails, rather than swinging on hinges, and, when opened, slides into an open cavity within a wall.

A sliding glass door is a door made of glass that slides open and sometimes has a screen. Sliding glass doors are common in many houses, particularly as an entrance to the backyard. Such doors are also popular for use for the entrances to commercial structures.

An ambulance door is a back door for a truck or van which consists of two full-height double doors which open outward from the center. Other types of door options for these vehicles are roll up doors, hatchback doors and tailgates.

A revolving door is a type of door that typically consists of a structure with three or four panels that meet in the center and rotate one way about a vertical axis (sometimes the movement is not in a circle, but following a more complicated path, a combination of rotation and translation). Between the point of access and the point of exit the user walks between two moving panels. The door may be motorized or the user needs to push the front panel, and the space between two panels may be designed for multiple users or a single one. This door design is used primarily to maintain an air seal from the outside, thus minimizing leaking of climate controlled air from the building and the resulting expense of compensating for the loss. This type of door is also often seen as a mark of prestige and glamour for a building and it not unusual for neighbouring buildings to install their own revolving doors when a rival building gets one.

Automatic doors are powered open and closed, a door fitted with a spring to close it is not an automatic door. There are three methods by which an automatic door is activated.

1 - A sensor detects traffic is approaching. Sensors for automatic doors are generally:

2 - A switch is operated manualy, perhaps after security checks. This can be a push button switch or a swipe card.

3 - The user pushes, or pulls the door, once the door detects the movement it completes the open and close cycle. These are also known as power-assisted doors.

In addition to activate sensors automatic doors are generally fitted with safety sensors. These are usually an infra-red curtain or beam, but can be a pressure mat fitted on the swing side of the door. The purpose of the safety sensor is to prevent the door opening or slow its speed if an object is detected in its path whilst opening and to prevent the door closing or reactivate it if an object is detected in its path whilst closing.

Heron of Alexandria created the first automatic door.

Blast-proof doors, nuclear-blast proof doors, etc.

A tambour door is made of narrow horizontal slats and rolls up and down along vertical tracks and is typically found in entertainment centres and cabinets.

Door components

Door:A diagram illustrating the components of a panel door
Enlarge
A diagram illustrating the components of a panel door
Door:A typical peephole in a door, allowing the person to see who is outside the door without opening it.
Enlarge
A typical peephole in a door, allowing the person to see who is outside the door without opening it.

Door frames:

Related hardware:

Door construction

Panel Doors (A door built with Frame and panel , construction, Also called Stile and Rail Doors):

Plank & Batten Doors (An older design consisting primarily of vertical slats):

Flush Doors (many modern doors, including most interior doors):

Door:Door swing directions diagram.
Enlarge
Door swing directions diagram.

Door Swings

Door swings, or handing, are always determined from the outside (ie. outside to inside, or public to private).

Another way to determine door "handing" is to imagine yourself standing in the doorway with your back against the hinges. Swing your right or left arm in the way that the door swings. If you swing your left arm then the door is left handed. Swing your right arm and it is right handed. This method does not require a reference such as "from the outside" or "from the inside".

History

Door:An old door, Kashan, Iran
Enlarge
An old door, Kashan, Iran

}The earliest records are those represented in the paintings of the Egyptian tombs, in which they are shown as single or double doors, each in a single piece of wood. In Egypt, where the climate is intensely dry, there would be no fear of their warping, but in other countries it would be necessary to frame them, which according to Vitruvius (iv. 6.) was done with stiles (sea/si) and rails (see: Frame and panel): the spaces enclosed being filled with panels (tympana) let into grooves made in the stiles and rails. The stiles were the vertical boards, one of which, tenoned or hinged, is known as the hanging stile, the other as the middle or meeting stile. The horizontal cross pieces are the top rail, bottom rail, and middle or intermediate rails. The most ancient doors were in timber, those made for King Solomon's temple being in olive wood (I Kings vi. 31-35), which were carved and overlaid with gold. The doors dwelt upon in Homer would appear to have been cased in silver or brass. Besides Olive wood, elm, cedar, oak and cypress were used.

Door:Stone door, Hampi, India
Enlarge
Stone door, Hampi, India

All ancient doors were hung by pivots at the top and bottom of the hanging stile which worked in sockets in the lintel and sill, the latter being always in some hard stone such as basalt or granite. Those found at Nippur by Dr. Hilprecht, dating from 2000 B.C. were in dolerite. The tenons of the gates at Balawat were sheathed with bronze (now in the British Museum). These doors or gates were hung in two leaves, each about 8 ft.4 in. wide and 27 ft. high; they were encased with bronze bands or strips, 10 in. high, covered with repouss decoration of figures, etc. The wood doors would seem to have been about 3 in. thick, but the hanging stile was over 14 inches diameter. Other sheathings of various sizes in bronze have been found, which proves this to have been the universal method adopted to protect the wood pivots. In the Hauran in Syria, where timber is scarce the doors were made in stone, and one measuring 5 ft. 4 in. by 2 ft. 7 in. is in the British Museum; the band on the meeting stile shows that it was one of the leaves of a double door. At Kuffeir near Bostra in Syria, Burckhardt found stone doors, 9 to 10 ft. high, being the entrance doors of the town. In Etruria many stone doors are referred to by Dennis.

The ancient Greek and Roman doors were either single doors , double doors or folding doors, in the last case the leaves were hinged and folded back. In Eumachia, is a painting of a door with three leaves. In the tomb of Theron at Agrigentum there is a single four-panel door carved in stone. In the Blundell collection is a bas-relief of a temple with double doors, each leaf with five panels. Among existing examples, the bronze doors in the church of SS. Cosmas and Damiano, in Rome, are important examples of Roman metal work of the best period; they are in two leaves, each with two panels, and are framed in bronze. Those of the Pantheon are similar in design, with narrow horizontal panels in addition, at the top, bottom and middle. Two other bronze doors of the Roman period are in the Lateran Basilica.

The doors of the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem (6th century) are covered with plates of bronze, cut out in patterns:

Door:An old door, Isfahan, Iran
Enlarge
An old door, Isfahan, Iran

those of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople, of the 8th and 9th century, are wrought in bronze, and the west doors of the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle (9th century), of similar manufacture, were probably brought from Constantinople, as also some of those in St. Marks, Venice.

Of the 11th and 12th centuries there are numerous examples of bronze doors, the earliest being one at Hildesheim, Germany (1015). Of others in South Italy and Sicily, the following are the finest: in Sant Andrea, Amalfi (1060); Salerno (1099); Canosa (1111); Troia, two doors (1119 and 1124); Ravello (1179), by Barisano of Trani, who also made doors for Trani cathedral; and in Monreale and Pisa cathedrals, by Bonano of Pisa. In all these cases the hanging stile had pivots at the top and bottom. The exact period when the hinge was substituted is not quite known, but the change apparently brought about another method of strengthening and decorating doors, viz, with wrought-iron bands of infinite varieties of design. As a rule three bands from which the ornamental work springs constitute the hinges, which have rings outside the hanging stiles fitting on to vertical tenons run into the masonry or wooden frame. There is an early example of the 12th century in Lincoln; in France the metal work of the doors of Notre Dame at Paris is perhaps the most beautiful in execution, but examples are endless throughout France and England.

Returning to Italy, the most celebrated doors are those of the Battistero di San Giovanni (Florence), which together with the door frames are all in bronze, the borders of the latter being perhaps the most remarkable: the modeling of the figures, birds and foliage of the south doorway, by Andrea Pisano (1330), and of the east doorway by Ghiberti (1425-1452), are of great beauty; in the north door (1402-1424) Ghiberti adopted the same scheme of design for the paneling and figure subjects in them as Andrea Pisano, but in the east door the rectangular panels are all filled, with bas-reliefs, in which Scripture subjects are illustrated with innumerable figures, these being probably the gates of Paradise of which Michelangelo speaks.

The doors of the mosques in Cairo were of two kinds; those which, externally, were cased with sheets of bronze or iron, cut out in decorative patterns, and incised or inlaid, with bosses in relief; and those in wood, which were framed with interlaced designs of the square and diamond, this latter description of work being Coptic in its origin. The doors of the palace at Palermo, which were made by Saracenic workmen for the Normans, are fine examples and in good preservation. A somewhat similar decorative class of door to these latter is found in Verona, where the edges of the stiles and rails are beveled and notched.

In the Renaissance period the Italian doors are quite simple, their architects trusting more to the doorways for effect; but in France and Germany the contrary is the case, the doors being elaborately carved, especially in the Louis XIV and Louis XV periods, and sometimes with architectural features such as columns and entablatures with pediment and niches, the doorway being in plain masonry. While in Italy the tendency was to give scale by increasing the number of panels, in France the contrary seems to have been the rule; and one of the great doors at Fontainebleau, which is in two leaves, is entirely carried out as if consisting of one great panel only.

The earliest Renaissance doors in France are those of the cathedral of St. Sauveur at Aix (1503); in the lower panels there are figures 3 ft. high in Gothic niches, and in the upper panels a double range of niches with figures about 2 ft. high with canopies over them, all carved in cedar. The south door of Beauvais cathedral is in some respects the finest in France; the upper panels are carved in high relief with figure subjects and canopies over them. The doors of the church at Gisors (1575) are carved with figures in niches subdivided by classic pilasters superimposed. In St. Maclou at Rouen are three magnificently carved doors; those by Jean Goujon have figures in niches on each side, and others in a group of great beauty in the center. The other doors, probably about forty to fifty years later, are enriched with bas-reliefs, landscapes, figures and elaborate interlaced borders.

In England in the 17th century the door panels were raised with bolection or projecting moldings, sometimes richly carved, round them; in the 18th century the moldings worked on the stiles and rails were carved with the egg and tongue ornament.

See also

Door:Wiktionary-logo-en
Look up Door in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Patents

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Categories


Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica | Doors

Find

Find

Find