>>Hold on there Pancho. "What is this door made of?" is a perfectly good question for finding out what the door is made of. Why would I need another way to ask the same question just for the purpose of retrieving an adjective instead of a noun in the response? I can think of no possible liguistic need that it would serve.
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>Just for about any other situation where you already know what the object is, but want to inquire about its properties. Specifically, "what is this place?" is actually grating on my nerves, because the answer is "it's a place", "it's a location", "it's somewhere to be".
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>>>And "adequate" is just that...
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>>Adequate: 1. sufficient for a specific requirement.
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>>What do I need for this type of situation beyond "adequate"?
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>OK: if "what" is not adequate, then --- is it? Give me a word. "What is it" doesn't work, because I'll answer "it's a language issue". If this question is not clear, then --- is it? "What is it" doesn't work, because I'll answer "it's a question".

I think you're losing me now. I have no idea any more what you are trying to figure out. If you want to know what the door is made of, then you ask, "What is the door made of?" Why do you seem to need some other (probably more convoluted) way of asking the same question? What is inadequate or unacceptable about "What is the door made of?" It's certainly not a very obscure construct, or obfuscation of what you want to know, so what's wrong with it?

If you want to know the name of the building, or park or whatever you are in, the ask that. Why so desperate to find a convoluted way of asking a simple question? Besides, you don't really want to know the properties. You want to know one specific property, so ask about it. In Serbian is there a way to ask the question so that you get back all the properties in which you happen to be interested? The language lets the other person know just exactly which ones, of all the properties of the 'place' are the ones that you want to know about without your actually specifying them?