The ironwork of Peleş Castle is a happy complement to the exterior architecture, because it combines the useful with the aesthetic, and for its creation, the client turned to the most renowned Viennese workshops of the time, Albert Milde and Valerian Gillar.
In 1878, Albert Milde was registered as the forger of the Austrian Imperial Court, being the owner of a construction company, with a very rich business card in international awards and distinctions, which is why we believe that it was enough to recommend him to King Carol I, who was directly involved in the implementation of the plans and hiring of specialists for the Peleş construction site.
Valerian Gillar was a contemporary of Albert Milde, as we find him mentioned on a document where a mention is made of the collaborators of his construction company. Endowed with real qualities as a decorator as well as a designer, V. Gillar from Vienna receives in the United States, on February 26, 1929, the inventor's patent for the iron window frame.
The collaboration with the two Viennese, Valerian Gillar and Albert Milde, is confirmed by ironwork works of great aesthetic value: grilles decorating windows, or constituting the support for hanging plants, balustrades, lanterns, garden gates, roof ornaments, wrought iron candlesticks and, last but not least, imposing entrance doors to the castle.
Present since the Renaissance period in castles and places of worship, the locked door was intended to protect the entrance from enemy attacks and fire. By locking, the wooden part of the door is covered with sheet metal (1-1.5 mm), then fixed in rivets and reinforced with iron ties, arranged in all directions. At Peleş Castle, three locked doors of different sizes are installed, of which the door from the south terrace, at the base of the clock tower, is the one that attracts the visitor's attention.
The locked door has an arched pediment following the arch of the masonry, with a small gate included in the middle, it being designed more like an entrance gate similar to households in any German burg.
From an aesthetic point of view, this locked door has special valences, which subscribe to the architectural ensemble of Peleş Castle. Since it is located on the south side of the castle, it is subject to the viewer's attention, benefiting from the sunlight that causes a permanent play of light and shadow, effects obtained by alternating the voids with the solids and by the different reflection of light, by the facets and rosettes of the rivets that stand out from the plan. This intention is explicit by the use of the applique in the shape of a lion's protom, as a suggested solar symbol and by the color of the bronze from which it is cast. This triple superposition of functional or decorative elements (strips, rivets and appliques) significantly enhances the plastic effect.
Although flattened, the design of the decorative ensemble is dynamic through the successful use of rhombuses, through the rhythmic application of rivets that accentuate the contours and highlighted by the sheet metal strips of the ironwork, painted in a light color (gray). The perfect connection between the 8 sheet metal strips is noticeable, as well as the craftsmanship with which the continuity of the design is achieved, interrupted by the functionality of the ensemble. Viewed from a distance, the composition in the main plane of the door induces the viewer the sensation of a kaleidoscope.
Designed in the first stage of construction of the building (until 1883), as an access route to the large tower, conceived in the style of German gates (with a median gate) and using the rhombus motif in decoration, preferred in the creation of Renaissance locked doors, the locked door from the southern terrace of Peleş Castle has obvious neo-style elements. The most striking is the arched pediment on the masonry gap, which presents a window with glass, protected and decorated with a wrought iron grille made in the 19th century, which reproduces plant motifs (flowers and vines), in a modern manner and with modern working techniques. Neo-style elements are also evident in the treatment of the composition of the door as a whole, by filling the gaps between the rhombuses with brackets and vines, treated in a modern manner and made with modern techniques, by casting in a mold. The techniques used in the creation of this door are specific to modern wrought iron processing. If until the beginning of the 19th century, the bands were almost without exception obtained from iron rods shaped to the desired shape by beating and stretching, later, the desired shapes were shaped by casting in molds. This method proved cheaper and led to the efficiency of the production of decorations, obtaining more identical models and in a shorter time. Returning to the decoration of the locked door at Peleş Castle, a closer look at the details shows that decorative segments were cast for the different sides of the rhombuses, the metal having continuity and then welded on the whole, maintaining perfect flatness. The perfect and identical dimensions of the parts of the decoration, the processed surfaces, which do not retain the mark of the shaping hammer, confirm our assumption that modern methods from the 19th century were used to process and shape the wrought iron in the decoration of the locked door at Peleş Castle.