The elevator doors at these eight Minneapolis skyscrapers are works of art

We don’t expect enough from elevator doors these days. We want them to open, to close and to stop when we touch the door when someone’s racing to make the car. We don’t ask them to be beautiful — we just want them to be functional. But there was a time when they were, and examples of that can still be found in Minneapolis.

The original purpose of the exterior doors — the landing doors, if you want the technical term — was to keep people from tumbling down the shaft. This would seem to be quite avoidable, but apparently it was a problem in the early days.

Charles N. Judson, who patented the car-and-shaft door system that had one set on the floor and one set inside the car, explained the need for safety features: “It is well known that elevator shafts and cars are a great source of danger to the public from the fact that through the negligence or carelessness of the attendant or through faulty construction, the doors or gates of such shafts or cars are either left open or are permitted to open by the action of gravity while the elevator car is in motion and away from a landing place, and thereby, persons are permitted to fall through the shaft and either [be] killed or badly injured.”

Early landing doors were scissor-grates, like the doors inside the cars. If you’re old enough you might remember dim childhood memories of elevator operators, who sat on a stool and had a big wheel to get the car from one floor to the other. He or she would close an accordion-style metal door, colloquially called a birdcage. You’d see the concrete walls of the elevator shaft, or hoistway, as you traveled — it could leave you a bit claustrophobic. The style lasted a few decades beyond the introduction of the landing doors we know today, but eventually the elevators were fully automated and equipped with thick doors inside and out.

The outside of the doors was often ornate because beauty was an essential element of a high-class office tower. It was a billboard for the building’s style and purpose.

A fine — and expensive-looking — example can be found at the Medical Arts Building. The building’s style is Gothic, a popular look in the 1920s. It suggests that you’re taking the elevator up to have some leeches applied, but people didn’t think too hard about the implications. The golden doors have the building’s initials, MA, in stylized Blackletter or Gothic typefaces. The doors also feature stylized caducei, the rod with the snakes, considered to be a symbol of medicine. Custom work like this gave a building extra cachet.

The 1920s had medieval styles like the Medical Arts on one block, and ultramodern design on another.

Rand Tower elevators:

The Moderne design of the doors reminds one of a martini glass. The design ornamentation — metallic foliage, stylized like a Moderne fossil bed — was popular in the Jazz Age.

The doors of the Grain Exchange annex, formerly the Chamber of Commerce building, at 412 S. 4th St., are “telescopic,” overlapping instead of pulling apart. The plaque, showing the land and the grain and — well, the elevators, but a different type — are found on other elevators.

Sometimes an elevator door suggests you’ve entered Fort Knox:

The Westin Minneapolis was formerly the Farmers and Mechanics bank, which explains why the doors are heavy and impressive. The designers wanted everything to suggest strength and security. The ornaments even suggest the dials of a combination lock.

Over at the Foshay Tower, there’s some proud and fussy preening:

The best way to show that your elevators were custom-designed? Put the building on the grille.

So, why don’t we have elevators like this today? For the same reason we don’t have excessive ornamentation on the exterior of the buildings. Styles change and budgets get tight. It’s the usual story of 20th-century architecture: The ornate styles looked old when modernism strips everything down to its pure essence. And, coincidentally, they were cheaper. Also, people didn’t expect much anymore — a blank door would do.

Modernization of old buildings meant replacing the old elevator systems with something new, and a clean blank silver door was the guarantee your ride was up to date. You wouldn’t see an old guy in a uniform sitting on a stool when those stainless-steel doors whooshed apart.

Sometimes the stripped-down look had its surprises. These doors from the Northstar Center at 608 2nd Av. S. have an interesting chain-mail metal pattern that’s very 1960s John F. Kennedy-era. It could stand a good scouring with some Brasso, though.

Sometimes the unadorned door provides a different type of visual amusement. Consider these doors in the atrium of the U.S. Bank Plaza at 200 S. 6th St. They break up the passing scene like a painting by the photorealistic artist Richard Estes.

Modern doors can be simple but still provide some visual interest:

The last great skyscraper of Minneapolis, the Capella Tower, harks back to the old days, but in an abstract fashion. The designs on the doors recall the shape of the building itself.

The old days of providing a moment of beauty to enjoy while you waited for your car are mostly gone. But to be honest, most people just gave them a glance. They were attractive objects of art, and Minneapolis abounded with such details.

Elevators don’t need to be beautiful. It’s not their primary function, of course. If they keep you from tumbling down the shaft, they’ve done their job.