Michael Graves

Ame­ri­can ar­chi­tect and de­si­gner, born in In­dia­na­po­lis, In­diana, and edu­ca­ted at the Uni­ver­sity of Cin­cin­nati and at Har­vard Uni­ver­sity. His in­nate gift for drawing and pain­ting be­came one of the cor­ners­to­nes of Graves's ar­chi­tec­tu­ral ta­lents. After earning his master's de­gree in ar­chi­tec­ture at Har­vard in 1959, he won a two-year fel­lowship at the Ame­ri­can Aca­demy in Rome. His im­mer­sion in clas­si­cal ar­chi­tec­ture and pain­ting had an en­du­ring ef­fect on his ideas of de­sign. In 1962 Gra­ves re­tur­ned to the United Sta­tes as a lec­tu­rer in ar­chi­tec­ture at Prin­ce­ton Uni­ver­sity. He rose through the ranks of as­sis­tant pro­fes­sor and as­so­ciate pro­fes­sor to be­come a full pro­fes­sor in 1972. Gra­ves met fre­quently with other young ar­chi­tects to dis­cuss the na­ture of ar­chi­tec­ture and its in­ter­play with the en­vi­ron­ment and urban pro­blems. With Peter Ei­sen­man he worked on “New Jer­sey Cor­ri­dor Study,” an ima­gi­nary city ex­ten­ding from New York City to Phil­adel­phia. No­to­riety from this study led to their in­clu­sion in se­veral major New York ex­hi­bi­ti­ons, and in 1972 they joi­ned three other pro­mi­nent young ar­chi­tects to pro­duce Five Ar­chi­tects, a col­la­bo­ra­tion of their cu­mu­la­tive work to date. The book, with its em­pha­sis on form over pared-down tech­no­logy, be­came the focus of cri­ti­cal dis­cus­sion of the na­ture of con­tem­porary ar­chi­tec­ture.

Gra­ves has de­si­gned ele­ments ran­ging from the mi­ni­mal to the me­ga­s­truc­ture. He has pro­du­ced mu­rals, pos­ters, rugs, costu­mes, kit­chen­ware, and fur­ni­ture as well as hou­ses, show­rooms, and large-scale buil­dings. He has re­lied hea­vily on Me­di­ter­ra­nean and clas­sic ex­am­ples, mi­xing their ele­ments with those of con­tem­porary mas­ters as he sought a com­mon ar­chi­tec­tu­ral lan­guage. His major buil­dings in­clude the Port­land Buil­ding in Ore­gon, an in­no­va­tive, de­co­ra­tive and energy-efficient struc­ture that opened in 1982; the pas­tel San Juan Ca­pis­trano Re­gio­nal Li­brary built in Ca­li­for­nia Spa­nish mis­sio­nary style; and the Hu­mana Buil­ding in Louis­ville, Ken­tu­cky, a pink and red gra­nite sky­scra­per. One of Graves's most im­portant com­mis­si­ons was as the ar­chi­tect of an ad­di­tion to the Whit­ney Mu­seum in New York City in the 1980s. His first two sets of plans pro­ved too con­tro­ver­sial, but his third ren­de­ring pre­ser­ved the es­sence of Mar­cel Breuer's stark gray gra­nite buil­ding while com­bi­ning it with his own ar­tis­tic vi­sion. Graves's re­cent buil­dings in­clude an eclec­tic hotel and con­ven­tion com­plex at the Walt Dis­ney World Epcot Cen­ter in Flo­rida top­ped with giant dol­phins and swans.