Anyway, it is still possible to have a good idea of this wood carving tradition and traditional wood architecture by visiting several villages which have been maintained quite close to their former state as in the Maramures. It is also possible to visit several ethnographic museums which try to preserve the traditional heritage of Transylvania. The biggest Romanian open air museum, the Popular Technics Museum, is situated in Sibiu. The open air museums collect old houses and churches from different villages of Transylvania and reconstruct typical villages. If those open air museums are not the village reality, they help visitors to make themselves an idea about what those villages looked like.
Wooden gates are the main originality of the traditional Transylvanian architecture.
They keep up the principles of construction and decoration fixed in the late Middle Ages. The gates are monumental, made of strong wood. The carvers use all the qualities of wood, its monumentality, its color, its network, its hardness and its workability. Those gates magnify the entrances to village houses, cemeteries and churches. Their function is to welcome visitors, to show devotion to the own people, confession of faith today and status to the owner.