"A door," said Ogden Nash, "is what a dog is always on the wrong side of."
Not so for humans. As masters of our world, we tend to give doors little thought. At best, they're an insignificant impediment. At worst, they give us a moment of conspicuous stupidity. Oh, right, I'm supposed to push, not pull.
If we stop to think about doors, it's probably for their ease of use. We might not note the most remarkable and unnecessary thing about the doors of public buildings: their beauty.
Doors offer a first impression, so when a building boasts unique, attractive doors, it makes a statement.
Consider the Old Republic Title building (400 2nd Av. S., Mpls.). The building itself gets no love. Though it was built in 1929, it's not the most interesting of late Jazz Age design. The Foshay Tower and the Rand Tower, both finished in 1929, are visually intriguing, but Old Republic is just a block of brick with the sober character of a dependable employee who never misses a day of work. Its saving grace is the Deco carvings on the upper stories.
It was once known as the Hodgson Building, then, for a few years, it was the General Mills Building. At some point, it was rehabbed for postwar use, and that's when the building's blandness turned out to be a good thing.
The entrance was rebuilt in the midcentury style, complete with new doors. The opposite of the original heavy portals, the new doors feature panes of glass with handles that seem to float in the middle of the door. The typeface on the handles (PULL, they say) is in a font that's straight from a 1947 Esquire ad. And it works.
Custom doors are rare on office buildings, simply because they're expensive.