Tuesday 28 April 2009

Old door

This beautiful door in need of a little restoration work stands right next to Versailles town hall. The presence of a French flag makes me suppose it is an official building, maybe an annexe of said town hall. Its origins seem military though, if you look at the details below.
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Ce beau portail qui a besoin d'être restauré se situe à côté de la mairie. La présence du drapeau français laisse supposer qu'il s'agit d'un bâtiment officiel, peut-être une annexe de ladite mairie. En tout état de cause, les origines du lieu sont sans doute militaires, comme en témoignent les détails ci-dessous.

22 comments:

That is the chicken said...

What a magnificent door - makes me wonder what's behind it...it's much too nice to be for the government! If you ever come to Calgary you can take a bobsled run as a tourist! We have a full outdoor track and you caqn go down on a bobsled with wheels in the summer.

Neva said...

Doors have an interesting history...too bad they can't talk!

Cezar and Léia said...

Fantastic door.I loved your composition in the second shot with nice details!
Léia

Lowell said...

It appears the entire building may disintegrate...and I agree about the military connection. Well composed and interesting photos, CQ!

Barb said...

love the door....Barb

Clueless in Boston said...

Beautiful doorway indeed. The detailing around the door is quite spectacular.

Buck said...

Beautiful photo and excellent commentary.

Olivier said...

de beaux détails de cette porte. En effet une petite restauration ferait pas de mal....

Bergson said...

Superbes détails et en plus il y a le nom de ton blog en plein milieu ;-)))

raf said...

Ah, so lovely, old doors like this. The detail work is fascinating. Excellent post, Ciel!

Julie ScottsdaleDailyPhoto.com said...

gorgeous details. I also loved your Wisteria photos. very artsy and the architectural details make them timeless. Thanks for your comments about the Frank Lloyd Wright Series. I was hoping it would be of interest to people. I have a few more days and then I will move on to different Chihuly, cactus and desert photos. I was in Morocco for the past two weeks so I wanted to make sure there was a series of something that would be informative and different for people to enjoy while I was away. Morocco was very interesting and, surprisingly, very French. A very different experience than Egypt or Jordan. It was a quite enjoyable trip. I will spend the next week catching up on everyone's websites and enjoying their photos. Thanks for your comments on my site. I have read them all.

crocrodyl said...

Great! Beautiful! Nice details!

Hilda said...

It's fantastic! Whoever uses the building now, I hope they don't let it deteriorate even more.

Rob said...

Fascinating the architectural details. Imagine the hard work from the talented craftsmen so long ago.

Juergen Kuehn said...

I love such old portals like this. You captured the details so great. It's always a wide contrast to modern architecture.
If your are right with le tricolore then Monsieur Sarkozycan spend some of taxpayers' money for a little! renovation.

Debbie Courson Smith said...

I'm glad you didn't overlook the details - which I'm sure people do upon noting that it needs restoration.

Don and Krise said...

I am a fan of great architecture. This is beautiful. It makes you want to open it and see what is inside.

Anonymous said...

I'm very sorry, I'm thinking of the end-scene in Nikita when the car bursts through the door on a similar building.

Catherine said...

Une petite remise en forme serait nécessaire pour la porte en bois, ..... et son entourage en pierre. De plus, dommage qu'on y ait collé cet affreux panneau d'interdiction de stationner.

EG CameraGirl said...

Versailles has such lovely architecture! I hope someone restores the ornate old door.

Bob Crowe said...

Good observation - the details certainly do look martial. Would you guess this was built before or after the Revolution? There would be some irony in seeing an old building of the king's army flying the flag of the Republic.

Anonymous said...

Just gorgeous.