There are different types of pivot hinges.

The type you have looks like they are installed properly, although it sounds like it isn't the type you expected. But that's not necessarily the contractors fault if you just asked for pivot hinges.

Note: The type where the pivot point is hidden in the middle of the door requires some swinging room beside it. So when the doors are closed, there would be a gap at the edge.

Your type, where the pivot point is outside of the door, can allow the doors to be flush together when closed.

Greg_2015 - thanks for the insight. How would you handle the casing situation? Would you notch the casing or move it higher (so there is a bigger space around the door)?

Your first picture with the notch looks good to me.

This photo was next to the photo of your example doors on that site. These wouldn't handle your solid core doors and are made for a simpler installation where the casing overlaps the door opening hiding a large gap, doors are not installed tight etc.

Your contractor upgraded the hinges and installation, installed correctly.

These are cheap.

PPF,

The hinges that you showed require a gap at the edge to allow the door to pivot. That isn't a big deal in the situation shown in the OPs third picture (the example stockphoto) because the gap can be covered with trim around the edge.

But in the OPs actual situation (first picture), he has 4 doors with the two middle ones butting up against each other. Using the type of hinge you're suggesting would mean that there would be a 2 inch gap between the doors that can't be covered with anything.

Here's a top down view of the two situations. The red is the door when it has been swung open. Notice how in the top situation, the corner intrudes into the area between the doors.

Something like this "offset pivot hinge" is what you have.

Pivot door hardware used on large doors leave a larger section of the opening unusable. These optimize the opening by being placed on the edge and further by eliminating the center jamb. Trim carpenter delima... maintain the same trim offset throughout the house and notch or increase the offset. After paint this will be reasonable.

@greg_2015

I was curious about "there would be a 2 inch gap between the doors", so I drew it to scale.

Doors are 1-3/8". Gap is 1/4". Circle shows how the door swings around the pivot point.

Left door pivot 1" from end. Right door 3" from end.

Left door 2" from end.

This shows how adding a slight bevel to the door edge could visually narrow the gap.

I'll admit that I didn't do the math and probably exaggerated. :)

Are you saying if it is 1 inch from the edge then each door would need a 1/4" gap to swing? That would mean that there would be a minimum 1/2" gap so that both doors could swing at the same time and not hit each other?

I still think that would look bad, but to each his own.

His doors are pretty narrow, so if those hinges were inset 2 or 3 inches then he'd lose a lot of the opening.