Michael Graves
Michael Graves
Michael Graveswas an American architect. Identified as one of The New York Five, as well as Memphis Group, Graves was known first for his contemporary building designs and some prominent public commissions that became iconic examples of Postmodern architecture, such as the Portland Building and Denver Public Library. His recognition grew through designing domestic products sold by premium Italian housewares maker Alessi, and later low-cost new designs at stores such as Target and J. C. Penney in the United States...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth9 July 1934
CityIndianapolis, IN
CountryUnited States of America
Architecture only does part of the work. How you fill the space matters just as much, sometimes more. I designed a beach house with a continuous living/dining area, but it had to have a table in the middle to give it a visual rhythm. Every room has a foreground and a background. But you also need a middle ground - like that table - to go between.
The oldest book I have is a treatise on architecture from the 17th century.
I see architecture not as Gropius did, as a moral venture, as truth, but as invention, in the same way that poetry or music or painting is invention.
I taught at Princeton for 39 years, and the school of architecture on the campus is the worst building on the campus.
I'm working on a school of architecture in China. It's rare that an architect gets to design a school of architecture, and here I get to do it. I'm so pleased that they asked me.
The dialogue of architecture has been centered too long around the idea of truth.
I don't believe in morality in architecture.
In any architecture, there is an equity between the pragmatic function and the symbolic function.
Architecture is not all about the design of the building and nothing else, it is also about the cultural setting and the ambience, the whole affair.
I have no requirements for a style of architecture.
If I have a style, I am not aware of it.
When I started my own practice, I was criticized, not because I was doing product design but because, like Le Corbusier, I was insisting on paintings in all of my buildings. I would paint wall murals in the houses that I designed, just as he did in the '20s and '30s.
It would be nice if the cities knew who would be prosecuting before they passed the ordinance and started arresting people.
I used a kind of gray-green early on in my practice for painting steel, to make it look more like it had a kind of patina to it, like copper and bronze and so on. The color I used was a Benjamin Moore color called 2012. My then-young daughter started calling me 2012 - it was my nickname.