A few things…

1) Based on the LinkedIn messages that I started receiving last night from the first time zones to roll over to August 1st, it must be my birthday!

2) We’re celebrating my 52 years on Earth by unveiling the new website design!  If you find any issues…broken links, typos, anything at all – just send me a message and we’ll get it fixed up.

3) Continuing on the “Doors of Italy” theme (without spoiling the upcoming article in Door Security + Safety Magazine), I’m going to share my favorite pair of doors from the trip.  They’re not my favorites because they’re the most beautiful, the largest, the oldest, etc., but because they are a great Fixed-it Friday example.  I know it’s Thursday, but everyone should be able to break the rules on their birthday, right?

These are the main entrance doors on the Duomo di Siena (Siena Cathedral).  I really loved visiting Siena, which is located in Tuscany and has a really interesting history that includes neighborhood rivalries settled by horse races around the main square – held twice each summer.  The main entrance of the cathedral is a pair of bronze doors, known as the Porta della Riconoscenza.  These doors were commissioned in 1946 and were sculpted by Vico Consorti and cast by Enrico Manfrini to replace the original wood doors.

Here is the front of the cathedral, with the beautiful bronze doors:

And the same doors from the interior, with the creative “lock.”  This can’t possibly be how they lock the doors at night…maybe this is just the way the doors are kept closed during the day, but are easily openable in an emergency?  I guess we’ll never know.

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Special thanks to the man behind the curtain – Robert Drake of Creekside Systems for working with me on the new site layout!  Seriously, if you need help with a website, I highly recommend him!  You can email him here.

And thanks to Joe Quaranta of Allegion for the photo of this door that seems like it was made just for this occasion!  –>

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