Michael Graves

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Michael Graves

Michael Graves
Michael Graves, born the summer or 1934 in Indianapolis, knew he wanted to be an artist by the age of six. Encouraged by his mother to seek a more practical career, Graves choose architecture. After studying at the University of Connecticut, he got his master's degree at Harvard University. After finishing school in 1959, he moved to New York City where he worked at the office of George Nelson. While working in New York, Graves received a fellowship to study at American Academy in Rome, Italy. Graves studied the classical architecture, which inspires much of his work. It was his time in Rome that allowed him to make the connection between ancient and modern architecture.
In 1962, Graves started teaching architecture at Princeton University. He designed buildings upon commission, but not until 1977 did his work become nationally know. Graves received a commission for a cultural center spanning the Red River on the Minnesota/North Dakota border. Although lack of funding never allowed his design to be built, he gained a lot of attention. Graves' next project, the Portland Building, is a fifteen story postmodernist skyscraper. It can be defined this way because of its unusual use of color. There is also a reference to Greek columns on the facade of the building.
As more commissions followed, Graves began his own design studio in Princeton. As a privileged member of the designers at this studio, I can witness the process of Graves' design. His firm is split into teams of designers. There are the interior and architectural designers in one building and the industrial designers in a separate studio. Michael and the team leaders primarily plan each project out. The teams then develop the project. Computer drawings are then sent to the modelers and painters. The atmosphere at the Graves studio is extremely laid back, but professional. For example there are several dogs roaming around the studios, but the conference rooms double as display rooms for Michael's previous projects and libraries.
There are several reasons why Michael Graves is considered a post-modernist. The typical modernist based their designs on structure and technology and used plain surfaces such as glass and steel. Graves' designs are decorative and use natural materials. The colors used for most of Graves' designs are gray, soft blues, green stucco, and terra cotta. These colors add human qualities to the design. In an essay by Ivan Zurich, the classification of ...

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