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Frank Gehry

Frank Owen Gehry  (Goldberg; born February 28, 1929) is a Canadian-born American architect and designer. A number of his buildings, including his private residence in Santa Monica, California, have become world-renowned attractions.

His works are considered among the most important of contemporary architecture in the 2010 World Architecture Survey, leading Vanity Fair to call him "the most important architect of our age". He is also the designer of the National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial.

Gehry is known for his postmodern designs and use of bold, unconventional forms and materials. His most famous works include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. These buildings are characterized by their sculptural, often undulating exteriors and innovative use of materials such as titanium and stainless steel.

Born in Toronto, Gehry moved to Los Angeles in 1947 and established his architectural practice there in 1962. He rose to prominence in the 1970s with his distinctive style that blended everyday materials with complex, dynamic structures. Gehry's approach to architecture has been described as deconstructivist, though he himself resists categorization.

Throughout his career, Gehry has received numerous awards and honors, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1989, considered the field's highest honor. He has also been awarded the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the United States. Gehry's influence extends beyond architecture; he has designed furniture, jewelry, and liquor bottles.

Early life

Gehry was born Frank Owen Goldberg on February 28, 1929, in Toronto, Ontario, to parents Sadie Thelma (née Kaplanski/Caplan) and Irving Goldberg. His father was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Russian Jewish parents, and his mother was a Polish Jewish immigrant born in Łódź. A creative child, he was encouraged by his grandmother, Leah Caplan, with whom he built little cities out of scraps of wood. With these scraps from her husband's hardware store, she entertained him for hours, building imaginary houses and futuristic cities on the living room floor.

Gehry's use of corrugated steel, chain-link fencing, unpainted plywood, and other utilitarian or "everyday" materials was partly inspired by spending Saturday mornings at his grandfather's hardware store. He spent time drawing with his father, and his mother introduced him to the world of art. "So the creative genes were there", Gehry says. "But my father thought I was a dreamer, I wasn't gonna amount to anything. It was my mother who thought I was just reticent to do things. She would push me."

He was given the Hebrew name "Ephraim" by his grandfather, but used it only at his bar mitzvah.

Education
In 1947, Gehry's family immigrated to the United States, settling in California. He got a job driving a delivery truck and studied at Los Angeles City College. He went on to graduate from the University of Southern California's School of Architecture. During that time, he became a member of Alpha Epsilon Pi.

According to Gehry, "I was a truck driver in L.A., going to City College, and I tried radio announcing, which I wasn't very good at. I tried chemical engineering, which I wasn't very good at and didn't like, and then I remembered. You know, somehow I just started wracking my brain about, 'What do I like?' Where was I? What made me excited? And I remembered art, that I loved going to museums and I loved looking at paintings, loved listening to music. Those things came from my mother, who took me to concerts and museums. I remembered Grandma and the blocks, and just on a hunch, I tried some architecture classes." Gehry graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Southern California in 1954.

He then spent time away from architecture in numerous other jobs, including service in the United States Army. In the fall of 1956, he moved his family to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he studied city planning at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He left before completing the program, disheartened and "underwhelmed". His progressive ideas about socially responsible architecture were under-realized, and the final straw occurred when he sat in on a discussion of one professor's "secret project in progress"—a palace that he was designing for right-wing Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista (1901–1973).

Career
Gehry returned to Los Angeles to work for Victor Gruen Associates, with whom he had apprenticed while at USC. In 1957, at age 28, he was given the chance to design his first private residence with friend and old classmate Greg Walsh. Construction was done by another neighbor across the street from his wife's family, Charlie Sockler. Built in Idyllwild, California for his wife Anita's family neighbor Melvin David, the over 2,000 sqft "David Cabin" shows features that were to become synonymous with Gehry's later work, including beams protruding from the exterior sides, vertical-grain douglas fir detail, and exposed unfinished ceiling beams. It also shows strong Asian influences, stemming from his earliest inspirations, such as the Shosoin treasure house in Nara, Japan.

In 1961, Gehry moved to Paris, where he worked for architect Andre Remondet. In 1962, he established a practice in Los Angeles that became Frank Gehry and Associates in 1967, then Gehry Partners in 2001. His earliest commissions were in Southern California, where he designed a number of innovative commercial structures such as Santa Monica Place (1980) and residential buildings such as the eccentric Norton House (1984) in Venice, California.

Among these works, Gehry's most notable design may be the renovation of his own Santa Monica residence. Originally built in 1920 and purchased by Gehry in 1977, it features a metallic exterior wrapped around the original building that leaves many of the original details visible. Gehry still resides there.

Other of Gehry's buildings completed during the 1980s include the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (1981) in San Pedro, and the California Aerospace Museum (1984) at the California Museum of Science and Industry in Los Angeles.

In 1989, Gehry received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, where the jury described him: "Always open to experimentation, he has as well a sureness and maturity that resists, in the same way that Picasso did, being bound either by critical acceptance or his successes. His buildings are juxtaposed collages of spaces and materials that make users appreciative of both the theatre and the back-stage, simultaneously revealed."

Gehry continued to design other notable buildings in California, such as the Chiat/Day Building (1991) in Venice, in collaboration with Claes Oldenburg, which is well known for its massive sculpture of binoculars. He also began receiving larger national and international commissions, including his first European commission, the Vitra International Furniture Manufacturing Facility and Design Museum in Germany, completed in 1989. It was soon followed by other major commissions including the Frederick Weisman Museum of Art (1993) in Minneapolis, Minnesota; the Cinémathèque Française (1994) in Paris; and the Dancing House (1996) in Prague.

From 1994 to 1996 a couple buildings by Gehry for a Public housing project were realized in Goldstein, part of Frankfurt-Schwanheim (1994) In 1997, Gehry vaulted to a new level of international acclaim when the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened in Bilbao, Spain. Hailed by The New Yorker as a "masterpiece of the 20th century", and by legendary architect Philip Johnson as "the greatest building of our time", the museum became famous for its striking yet aesthetically pleasing design and its positive economic effect on the city.

Since then, Gehry has regularly won major commissions and established himself as one of the world's most notable architects. His best-received works include several concert halls for classical music. The boisterous, curvaceous Walt Disney Concert Hall (2003) in downtown Los Angeles is the centerpiece of the neighborhood's revitalization; the Los Angeles Times called it "the most effective answer to doubters, naysayers, and grumbling critics an American architect has ever produced". Gehry also designed the open-air Jay Pritzker Pavilion (2004) in Chicago's Millennium Park; and the understated New World Center (2011) in Miami Beach, which the LA Times called "a piece of architecture that dares you to underestimate it or write it off at first glance."

His other notable works include academic buildings such as the Stata Center (2004) at MIT, and the Peter B. Lewis Library (2008) at Princeton University; museums such as the Museum of Pop Culture (2000) in Seattle, Washington; commercial buildings such as the IAC Building (2007) in New York City; and residential buildings, such as Gehry's first skyscraper, the Beekman Tower at 8 Spruce Street (2011) in New York City.

Gehry's recent major international works include the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building at the University of Technology Sydney, completed in 2014, and the Chau Chak Wing, with its 320,000 bricks in "sweeping lines", described as "10 out of 10" on a scale of difficulty. An ongoing project is the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi on Saadiyat Island in the United Arab Emirates. Other significant projects such as the Mirvish Towers in Toronto, and a multi-decade renovation of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, are currently in the design stage. In October 2013, Gehry was appointed joint architect with Foster + Partners to design the High Street phase of the development of Battersea Power Station in London, Gehry's first project there.

In recent years, some of Gehry's more prominent designs have failed to go forward. In addition to unrealized designs for the Corcoran Art Gallery expansion in Washington, DC, and a new Guggenheim museum near the South Street Seaport in New York City, Gehry was notoriously dropped by developer Bruce Ratner from the Pacific Park (Brooklyn) redevelopment project, and in 2014 as the designer of the World Trade Center Performing Arts Center in New York City. Some stalled projects have recently shown progress: After many years and a dismissal, Gehry was recently reinstated as architect for the Grand Avenue Project in Los Angeles, and though his controversial  design of the National Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC has had numerous delays during the approval process with the United States Congress, it was finally approved in 2014 with a modified design.

In 2014, two significant, long-awaited museums designed by Gehry opened: the Biomuseo, a biodiversity museum in Panama City, Panama; and the Fondation Louis Vuitton,  a modern art museum in the Bois de Boulogne park in Paris, France, which opened to some rave reviews.

Also in 2014, Gehry was commissioned by River LA (formerly the Los Angeles River Revitalization Corporation), a nonprofit group founded by the city of Los Angeles in 2009 to coordinate river policy, to devise a wide-ranging new plan for the river.

In February 2015, the new AU$180 million building for the University of Technology Sydney was officially opened, whose façade has more than 320,000 hand-placed bricks and glass slabs. Gehry said he would not design a building like the "crumpled paper bag" again.

Gehry told the French newspaper La Croix in November 2016 that President of France François Hollande had assured him he could relocate to France if Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. The following month, Gehry said that he had no plans to move. Trump and he exchanged words in 2010 when Gehry's 8 Spruce Street, originally known as Beekman Tower, was built 1 ft taller than the nearby Trump Building, which until then was New York City's tallest residential building.

Notable Gehry-designed buildings completed in the 2020s include the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC and the LUMA Arles museum in France. In 2021, noting Gehry's progress on an increasing number of significant projects in his hometown, including the Grand Avenue Project, a concert hall for the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles, and an office building for Warner Bros., The Architect's Newspaper stated that "Seventy-four years after he moved there from his native Toronto, L.A. is looking more and more like Gehry Country."

Architectural style
Said to "defy categorisation", Gehry's work reflects a spirit of experimentation coupled with a respect for the demands of professional practice, and has remained largely unaligned with broader stylistic tendencies or movements. With his earliest educational influences rooted in modernism, Gehry's work has sought to escape modernist stylistic tropes while remaining interested in some of its underlying transformative agendas. Continually working between given circumstances and unanticipated materializations, he has been assessed as someone who "made us produce buildings that are fun, sculpturally exciting, good experiences", although his approach may become "less relevant as pressure mounts to do more with less".

Gehry's style at times seems unfinished or even crude, but his work is consistent with the California "funk" art movement of the 1960s and early 1970s, which featured the use of inexpensive found objects and nontraditional media such as clay to make serious art. His works always have at least some element of deconstructivism; he has been called "the apostle of chain-link fencing and corrugated metal siding". However, a retrospective exhibit at New York's Whitney Museum in 1988 revealed that he is also a sophisticated classical artist who knows European art history and contemporary sculpture and painting.

Bilbao effect
After the phenomenal success of Gehry's design for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, critics began referring to the economic and cultural revitalization of cities through iconic, innovative architecture as the "Bilbao effect". In the first 12 months after the museum was opened, an estimated US$160 million were added to the Basque economy. Indeed, over $3.5 billion have been added to the Basque economy since the building opened. In subsequent years there have been many attempts to replicate this effect through large-scale eye-catching architectural commissions that have been both successful and unsuccessful, such as Daniel Libeskind's expansion of the Denver Art Museum and buildings by Gehry himself, such as the almost universally well-received Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the more controversial Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. Though some link the concept of the Bilbao effect to the notion of starchitecture, Gehry has consistently rejected the label of a starchitect.

Criticism
Though much of Gehry's work has been well-received, its reception was not always positive. Art historian Hal Foster reads Gehry's architecture as, primarily, in the service of corporate branding. Criticism of his work includes complaints over design flaws that the buildings waste structural resources by creating functionless forms, do not seem to belong in their surroundings or enhance the public context of their locations, and are apparently designed without taking into account the local climate.

Moreover, socialist magazine Jacobin pointed out that Gehry's work can be summed up as architecture for the super-wealthy, in the sense that it is expensive, not resourceful, and does not serve the interests of the overwhelming majority. The article criticized Gehry's statement, "In the world we live in, 98 percent of what gets built and designed today is pure shit".

Academia
In January 2011, Gehry joined the University of Southern California (USC) faculty, as the Judge Widney Professor of Architecture. He has since continued in this role at his alma mater. He has also held teaching positions at Harvard University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Toronto, Columbia University, the Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich, and at Yale University, where he still teaches as of 2017.

Though he is often referred to as a "starchitect", he has repeatedly expressed his disdain for the term, insisting he is only an architect. Steve Sample, President of the University of Southern California, told Gehry that "...After George Lucas, you are our most prominent graduate".

, Gehry has received over a dozen honorary university degrees (see ).

In February 2017, MasterClass announced an online architecture course taught by Gehry that was released that July.

Exhibition design
Gehry has been involved in exhibition designs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art dating back to the 1960s. In 1965, Gehry designed the exhibition display for the "Art Treasures of Japan" exhibition at the LACMA. This was followed soon after by the exhibition design for the "Assyrian Reliefs" show in 1966 and the "Billy Al Bengston Retrospective" in 1968. The LACMA then had Gehry design the installation for the "Treasures of Tutankhamen" exhibition in 1978 followed by the "Avant-Garde in Russia 1910–1930" exhibition in 1980. The subsequent year, Gehry designed the exhibition for "Seventeen Artists in the '60s" at the LACMA, followed soon after by the "German Expressionist Sculpture Exhibition" in 1983. In 1991–92, Gehry designed the installation of the landmark exhibition "Degenerate Art: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany", which opened at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and traveled to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and the Altes Museum in Berlin. Gehry was asked to design an exhibition on the work of Alexander Calder at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art's Resnick Pavilion, again invited by the museum's curator Stephanie Barron. The exhibition began on November 24, 2013, and ran through July 27, 2014.

In addition to his long-standing involvement with exhibition design at the LACMA, Gehry has also designed numerous exhibition installations with other institutions. In 1998, "The Art of the Motorcycle" exhibition opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum with its installation designed by Gehry. This exhibition subsequently traveled to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Guggenheim Las Vegas.

In 2014, he curated an exhibition of photography by his close friend and businessman Peter Arnell that ran from March 5 through April 1 at Milk Studios Gallery in Los Angeles.

Stage design
In 1983, Gehry created the stage design for Lucinda Childs' dance Available Light, set to music by John Adams. It premiered at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles at the "Temporary Contemporary", and was subsequently seen at the Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera House in New York City and the Theatre de la Ville in Paris. The set consisted of two levels angled in relation to each other, with a chain-link backdrop. The piece was revived in 2015, and was performed, among other places, in Los Angeles and Philadelphia, where it was presented by FringeArts, which commissioned the revival.

In 2012, Gehry designed the set for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's opera production of Don Giovanni, performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

In April 2014, Gehry designed a set for an "exploration of the life and career of Pierre Boulez" by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which was performed in November of that year.

Other designs
In addition to architecture, Gehry has made a line of furniture for Knoll and for Heller Furniture, jewelry for Tiffany & Co., various household items, sculptures, and even a glass bottle for Wyborowa Vodka. His first line of furniture, produced from 1969 to 1973, was called "Easy Edges", constructed out of cardboard. Another line of furniture released in the spring of 1992 is "Bentwood Furniture". Each piece is named after a different hockey term. He was first introduced to making furniture in 1954 while serving in the U.S. Army, where he designed furniture for the enlisted soldiers.

In many of his designs, Gehry is inspired by fish. "It was by accident I got into the fish image", claimed Gehry. One thing that sparked his interest in fish was the fact that his colleagues were recreating Greek temples. He said, "Three hundred million years before man was fish....if you gotta go back, and you're insecure about going forward...go back three hundred million years ago. Why are you stopping at the Greeks? So, I started drawing fish in my sketchbook, and then I started to realize that there was something in it."

As a result of his fascination, the first Fish Lamps were fabricated between 1984 and 1986. They employed wire armatures molded into fish shapes, onto which shards of plastic laminate ColorCore are individually glued. Since the creation of the first lamp in 1984, the fish has become a recurrent motif in Gehry's work, most notably in the Fish Sculpture at La Vila Olímpica del Poblenou in Barcelona (1989–92) and Standing Glass Fish for the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden (1986).

Gehry has previously collaborated with luxury jewelry company Tiffany & Co., creating six distinct jewelry collections: the Orchid, Fish, Torque, Equus, Axis, and Fold collections. In addition to jewelry, Gehry designed other items, including a distinctive collector's chess set and a series of tableware items, including vases, cups, and bowls for the company.

In 2004, Gehry designed the official trophy for the World Cup of Hockey. He redesigned the trophy for the next tournament in 2016.

He has collaborated with American furniture manufacturer Emeco on designs such as the 2004 "Superlight" chair.

In 2014, Gehry was one of the six "iconoclasts" selected by French fashion house Louis Vuitton to design a piece using their iconic monogram pattern as part of their "Celebrating Monogram" campaign.

In 2015, Gehry designed his first yacht.

In 2020, Gehry designed a limited edition bottle of Hennessy cognac.

Software development
Gehry's firm was responsible for innovation in architectural software. His firm spun off another firm called Gehry Technologies that was established in 2002. In 2005, Gehry Technologies began a partnership with Dassault Systèmes to bring innovations from the aerospace and manufacturing world to AEC and developed Digital Project software, as well as GTeam software. In 2014, Gehry Technologies was acquired by software company Trimble Navigation. Its client list includes Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, and Zaha Hadid.

Personal life
In 1954, Gehry changed his surname from Goldberg to Gehry, after his then-wife Anita expressed concern about anti-Semitism.

Having grown up in Canada, Gehry is an avid fan of ice hockey. He began a hockey league, FOG (for Frank Owen Gehry), in his office, though he no longer plays with them. In 2004, he designed the trophy for the World Cup of Hockey. A naturalized U.S. citizen, he also remains a citizen of Canada. He lives in Santa Monica, California, and continues to practice out of Los Angeles.

Gehry is known for his occasional bad temper. During a trip to Oviedo, Spain to accept the Prince of Asturias Award in October 2014, he received a significant amount of attention, both positive and negative, for publicly flipping off a reporter at a press conference who accused him of being a "showy" architect.

Gehry is a member of the California Yacht Club in Marina Del Rey, and enjoys sailing with his fiberglass-hulled yacht, Foggy. He also serves on the leadership council of The New York Stem Cell Foundation.

In popular culture
In 2004, Gehry voiced himself on the children's TV show Arthur, where he helped Arthur and his friends design a new treehouse. He also voiced himself in a 2005 episode of The Simpsons, "The Seven-Beer Snitch", where he designs a concert hall for the fictional city of Springfield. He has since said he regrets the appearance, as it included a joke about his design technique that has led people to misunderstand his architectural process.

In 2006, filmmaker Sydney Pollack made a documentary about Gehry's work, Sketches of Frank Gehry, which followed Gehry over five years and painted a positive portrait of his character; it was well-received critically.

In 2009, architecture-inspired ice cream sandwich company Coolhaus named a cookie and ice cream combination after Gehry. Dubbed the "Frank Behry", it features Strawberries & Cream gelato and snickerdoodle cookies.

Exhibitions
In October 2014, the first major European exhibition of Gehry's work debuted at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Other museums and major galleries that have held exhibitions on Gehry's architecture and design include the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1983; and the Walker Art Center in 1986, whose exhibition then traveled to the Toronto Harbourfront Museum, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the LACMA and the Whitney Museum. Museums with exhibitions on Gehry's work have included the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (1992), the Gagosian Gallery (1984, 1992 and 1993), the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (2001), the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (2002), the Jewish Museum in Manhattan (2010), and the Milan Triennale (first in 1988, then in 2010 with an exhibition entitled "Frank Gehry from 1997"), and LACMA (2015).

Gehry participated in the 1980 Venice Biennale's La Strada Novissima installation. He also contributed to the 1985 Venice Biennale with an installation and performance named Il Corso del Coltello, in collaboration with Claes Oldenburg. His projects were featured in the 1996 event, and contributed to the 2008 event with the installation Ungapatchket.

In October 2015, 21 21 Design Sight in Tokyo held the exhibition ''Frank Gehry. I Have An Idea'', curated by Japanese architect Tsuyoshi Tane.

In 2021, the Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills held Spinning Tales, an exhibition of new fish sculptures by Gehry.

Awards and honors

 * 1987: Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Letters
 * 1988: Elected into the National Academy of Design
 * 1989: Pritzker Architecture Prize
 * 1992: Praemium Imperiale
 * 1994: The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize
 * 1994: Thomas Jefferson Medal in Architecture
 * 1995: American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award
 * 1998: National Medal of Arts
 * 1998: Inaugural Austrian Frederick Kiesler Prize for Architecture and the Arts
 * 1998: Gold Medal Award, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada
 * 1999: AIA Gold Medal, American Institute of Architects
 * 2000: Cooper–Hewitt National Design Award Lifetime Achievement
 * 2002: Companion of the Order of Canada (CC)
 * 2004: Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service
 * 2006: Inductee, California Hall of Fame
 * 2007: Henry C. Turner Prize for Innovation in Construction Technology from the National Building Museum (on behalf of Gehry Partners and Gehry Technologies)
 * 2009: Order of Charlemagne
 * 2012: Twenty-five Year Award, American Institute of Architects
 * 2014: Prince of Asturias Award
 * 2014: Commandeur of the Ordre National de la Légion d'honneur, France
 * 2015: J. Paul Getty Medal
 * 2016: Harvard Arts Medal
 * 2016: Leonore and Walter Annenberg Award for Diplomacy through the Arts, Foundation for Arts and Preservation in Embassies
 * 2016: Presidential Medal of Freedom
 * 2018: Neutra Medal
 * 2019: Inductee, Canada's Walk of Fame
 * 2020: Paez Medal of Art, New York City (VAEA)

Gehry was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 1974, and he has received many national, regional and local AIA awards. He is a senior fellow of the Design Futures Council and serves on the steering committee of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture.

Honorary doctorates

 * 1987: California Institute of the Arts
 * 1987: Rhode Island School of Design
 * 1989: Otis College of Art and Design
 * 1989: Technical University of Nova Scotia
 * 1993: Occidental College
 * 1995: Whittier College
 * 1998: University of Toronto
 * 2000: Harvard University
 * 2000: University of Edinburgh
 * 2000: University of Southern California
 * 2000: Yale University
 * 2002: City College of New York
 * 2004: School of the Art Institute of Chicago
 * 2013: Case Western Reserve University
 * 2013: Princeton University
 * 2014: Juilliard School
 * 2015: University of Technology Sydney
 * 2017: University of Oxford
 * 2019: Southern California Institute of Architecture

title: Frank Gehry


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Cass Gilbert

Cass Gilbert (November 24, 1859 – May 17, 1934) was an American architect. An early proponent of skyscrapers, his works include the Woolworth Building, the United States Supreme Court building, the state capitols of Minnesota, Arkansas, and West Virginia, the Detroit Public Library, the Saint Louis Art Museum and Public Library. His public buildings in the Beaux Arts style reflect the optimistic American sense that the nation was heir to Greek democracy, Roman law and Renaissance humanism. Gilbert's achievements were recognized in his lifetime; he served as president of the American Institute of Architects in 1908–09.

Gilbert was a conservative who believed architecture should reflect historic traditions and the established social order. His design of the new Supreme Court building in 1935, with its classical lines and small size, contrasted sharply with the large federal buildings along the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which he disliked.

Heilbrun says "Gilbert's pioneering buildings injected vitality into skyscraper design, and his 'Gothic skyscraper,' epitomized by the Woolworth Building, profoundly influenced architects during the first decades of the twentieth century." Christen and Flanders note that his reputation among architectural critics went into eclipse during the age of modernism, but has since rebounded because of "respect for the integrity and classic beauty of his masterworks".

Early life
Gilbert was born in Zanesville, Ohio, the middle of three sons, and was named after the statesman Lewis Cass, to whom he was distantly related. Gilbert's father General Samuel A. Gilbert was a Union veteran of the American Civil War and a surveyor for the United States Coast Survey. His uncle was Union General Charles Champion Gilbert. When he was nine, Gilbert's family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, where he was raised by his mother after his father died. Cass was raised Presbyterian. He attended preparatory school but dropped out of Macalester College. He began his architectural career at age 17 by joining the Abraham M. Radcliffe office in St. Paul. In 1878, Gilbert enrolled in the architecture program at MIT.

Minnesota career

Gilbert worked for a time with the firm of McKim, Mead & White before starting a practice in St. Paul with James Knox Taylor. He was commissioned to design a number of railroad stations, including those in Anoka, Willmar and the extant Little Falls depot, all in Minnesota. As a Minnesota architect he was best known for his design of the Minnesota State Capitol and the downtown St. Paul Endicott Building. His goal was to move to New York City and gain a national reputation, but he remained in Minnesota from 1882 until 1898. Many of his Minnesota buildings are still standing, including more than a dozen private residences (especially those on St. Paul's Summit Avenue), several churches featuring rich textures and colors, resort summer homes, and warehouses.

National reputation
The completion of the Minnesota capitol gave Gilbert his national reputation and in 1898 he permanently moved his base to New York. His breakthrough commission was the design of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House in New York City, which now houses the George Gustav Heye Center. Gilbert served on the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts from 1910 to 1916. In 1906 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an associate member, and became a full academician in 1908. Gilbert served as president of the academy from 1926 to 1933. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1934.

He was a trustee of the Carnegie Institution from 1924 until he died in 1934.

Historical impact
Gilbert was a skyscraper pioneer; when designing the Woolworth Building he moved into unproven ground — though he certainly was aware of the ground-breaking work done by Chicago architects on skyscrapers and once discussed merging firms with the legendary Daniel Burnham — and his technique of cladding a steel frame became the model for decades. Modernists embraced his work: artist John Marin painted it several times; even Frank Lloyd Wright praised the lines of the building, though he decried the ornamentation.

Gilbert was one of the first celebrity architects in America, designing skyscrapers in New York City and Cincinnati, campus buildings at Oberlin College and the University of Texas at Austin, state capitols in Minnesota and West Virginia, the support towers of the George Washington Bridge, railroad stations (including the New Haven Union Station, 1920), and the United States Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. His reputation declined among some professionals during the age of Modernism, but he was on the design committee that guided and eventually approved the modernist design of Manhattan's groundbreaking Rockefeller Center. Gilbert's body of work as a whole is more eclectic than many critics admit. In particular, his Union Station in New Haven lacks the embellishments common of the Beaux-Arts period and contains the simple lines common in Modernism.

Gilbert wrote to a colleague, "I sometimes wish I had never built the Woolworth Building because I fear it may be regarded as my only work and you and I both know that whatever it may be in dimension and in certain lines it is after all only a skyscraper."

Gilbert's two buildings on the University of Texas at Austin campus, Sutton Hall (1918) and Battle Hall (1911), are recognized by architectural historians as among the finest works of architecture in the state. Designed in a Spanish-Mediterranean revival style, the two buildings became the stylistic basis for the later expansion of the university in the 1920s and 1930s and helped popularize the style throughout Texas.

Archives
Gilbert's drawings and correspondence are preserved at the New-York Historical Society, the Minnesota Historical Society, the University of Minnesota, and the Library of Congress.

Notable works

 * Saint Paul Seminary, Saint Paul, Minnesota.
 * Cretin Hall, Loras Hall, a gymnasium (now the Service Center), a classroom building, the refectory building, and the administration building in 1894 were commissioned by James J. Hill. Only Cretin and the Service Center still stand as part of the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota) campus.
 * Minnesota State Capitol, Saint Paul, Minnesota, 1895–1905.
 * Designed in High Renaissance style, the building is not a replica of the United States Capitol. Local newspapers made a fuss when Gilbert sent to Georgia for marble, but the result, in which a hemispherical dome caps a high drum not unlike that of St. Peter's Basilica, crowning a building housing the bicameral legislature and the state supreme court, was so nobly handsome that West Virginia and Arkansas contracted for Gilbert capitols as well. Its brick dome is held in hoops of steel.
 * St. Clement's Episcopal Church, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1895.
 * Designed in the traditional English country church style, with a lychgate and close, bell tower, and parish hall (renovated in 2006). Funded by a generous donation from Mrs. Theodore Eaton, widow of the rector of St. Clement's Episcopal Church in New York City. Includes original furniture, baptismal font, encaustic tile floor in choir, elaborate rood screen, linen-fold paneling, and parquet oak floor in sanctuary. The altar features Tiffany Studios stained glass window depicting the empty cross.
 * St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, 120 8th Street S., Moorhead, Minnesota, 1898–99
 * Northern Pacific Railway Depot, 701 Main Street, Fargo, North Dakota, 1898.
 * The Broadway-Chambers Building (277 Broadway), Manhattan, 1899–1900.
 * Gilbert's first building in New York City.
 * Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, Manhattan, 1902–1907.
 * Facing Bowling Green park in Lower Manhattan
 * Essex County Veterans Courthouse, Newark, 1904
 * Saint Louis Art Museum (Palace of the Fine Arts), St. Louis, Missouri, 1904.
 * Built for the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis and the only major building of the fair built as a permanent structure.
 * 90 West Street, Manhattan, 1905–1907.
 * Severely damaged during the September 11, 2001 attacks, this building in lower Manhattan has since been completely restored.
 * Metals Bank Building, Butte, Montana, 1906.
 * Commissioned by F. Augustus Heinze, this eight-story low-rise building has an internal steel frame. It was the second to be built in Butte after the 1901 Hirbour Building, which also has eight stories.
 * A series of master plans for the Minneapolis campus of the University of Minnesota, 1907.
 * Designs for 12 local stations on the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad in the Bronx and Westchester County, New York, 1908. Not all were built, and only four were extant in 2014, all in the Bronx: the Westchester Avenue station and Bartow station are in ruins, and the Morris Park and Hunts Point stations have been converted to other uses.  All ceased to be used as railroad stations by the late 1930s.
 * Spalding Building, Portland, Oregon, 1911.
 * A 12-story early skyscraper based on the construction principles of a classical column.
 * Battle Hall, Austin, Texas, 1911.
 * For the University of Texas at Austin.
 * New Haven Free Public Library, Mary E. Ives Memorial Library
 * At the corner of Elm and Temple Streets in downtown New Haven, architect Gilbert designed the brick and marble building to harmonize with the traditional architecture of New Haven, and especially with the United Church nearby. The building was formally dedicated to the City of New Haven on May 27, 1911.
 * Kelsey Building, Trenton, New Jersey, 1911.
 * Built by Henry Cooper Kelsey as a memorial to his wife. Now used by Thomas Edison State University.
 * St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis, Missouri, 1912
 * The main library for the city's public library system, in a severe classicizing style, has an oval central pavilion surrounded by four light courts. The outer facades of the free-standing building are of lightly rusticated Maine granite. The Olive Street front is disposed like a colossal arcade, with contrasting marble bas-relief panels. A projecting three-bay central block, like a pared-down triumphal arch, provides a monumental entrance. At the rear the Central Library faced a sunken garden. The interiors feature some light-transmitting glass floors. The ceiling of the Periodicals Room is modified from Michelangelo's ceiling in the Laurentian Library.
 * Woolworth Building, Manhattan, New York, 1913.
 * A Gothic Revival skyscraper clad in glazed terracotta panels, it was the tallest building in the world when built. Bas-reliefs in the lobby depict Woolworth and Gilbert with Woolworth holding nickels and dimes.
 * Fourth and Vine Tower, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1913.
 * Originally built as the headquarters for the Union Central Life Insurance Company.
 * Austin, Nichols and Company Warehouse, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, 1915.
 * Fountain, Ridgefield, Connecticut, 1914–16.
 * This fountain, at the intersection of Routes 35 and 33, was designed and donated to the town by Cass Gilbert, who had a summer home (Keeler Tavern) within sight of the intersection. In 2004, a drunk driver crashed into the fountain, heavily damaging it; the fountain was rebuilt, raised higher, and surrounded by protective plantings, and it is still functioning today.
 * Four buildings at Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio
 * Gilbert designed four buildings at Oberlin: Finney Chapel (1909), the Cox Administration Building (1915), the Allen Memorial Art Museum, and Bosworth Hall (1931). He enjoyed a close working relationship with Oberlin's president Henry Churchill King, but his relationship with Oberlin deteriorated after King retired in 1927 and most of the design work and construction supervision of Bosworth Hall and its residential quadrangle was done by Gilbert's son Cass Jr., who had earlier supervised the construction of the Allen Memorial Hospital (1924) in Oberlin (now Mercy Allen Medical Center).
 * Rodin Studios, Midtown Manhattan, New York, 1916–1917.
 * Chase Headquarters Building, Waterbury, Connecticut, 1917–1919.
 * This building was designed as the headquarters of the Chase Company and forms part of the Waterbury Municipal Center Complex, a unique concentration of Gilbert's architecture comprising the Waterbury City Hall, the Chase Bank Building and the Chase company headquarters, Chase's house, a dispensary and Lincoln House, a headquarters building for the city's charities.
 * G. Fox & Co. department store, Hartford, Connecticut, 1918.
 * Brooklyn Army Terminal, Sunset Park, Brooklyn, New York, 1919.
 * Freedman's Bank Building (previously known as the Treasury Annex), Lafayette Square, Washington, D.C., 1919.
 * R. C. Williams Warehouse, Chelsea, Manhattan, New York, 1919.
 * The Detroit Public Library, main branch, 1921.
 * The First Division Monument, President's Park, Washington D.C., 1924.
 * West Virginia State Capitol, Charleston, West Virginia, 1924–1932.
 * The James Scott Memorial Fountain, Belle Isle, Detroit, MI, 1925.
 * United States Chamber of Commerce headquarters, Washington, D.C., 1925.
 * Plans for cladding the George Washington Bridge support towers, New York–New Jersey, in masonry, 1926. Not carried out.
 * New York Life Building, 1926.
 * Gibraltar Building, 1927.
 * headquarters for Prudential Insurance in Newark
 * 130 West 30th Street, "The Cass Gilbert," 1927–1928.
 * Formerly offices and manufacturing spaces for businesses in the fur trade, now a luxury residential condominium.
 * Embassy of the United States in Canada (100 Wellington Street), Ottawa, 1932.
 * Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, Manhattan, 1933.
 * The Seaside, Waterford, Connecticut, 1934.
 * United States Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C., 1935.
 * Gilbert's last major project, guided to completion by his son, Cass Gilbert Jr. He died a year before it was completed. A vast Roman temple in the Corinthian order is penetrated by a cross range articulated with pilasters in very low relief. The central tablet in the richly sculpted frieze reads EQUAL JUSTICE UNDER LAW . His design for the U.S. Supreme Court chambers was based upon his design for the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals at the state capitol in Charleston. The pediment sculptures Liberty attended by order and Authority (great lawgivers Moses, Confucius, and Solon are on the West Portico) were executed by Hermon Atkins MacNeil.

Name confusion with C. P. H. Gilbert
Cass Gilbert is often confused with Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert, another prominent architect of the time. Cass Gilbert designed the famous Woolworth Building skyscraper on Broadway for Frank W. Woolworth, while Woolworth's personal mansion was designed by C. P. H. Gilbert.

The Ukrainian Institute building on Manhattan's 5th Avenue is the work of C. P. H. Gilbert, and often incorrectly attributed to Cass Gilbert.

Cass Gilbert is sometimes also confused with his son, architect Cass Gilbert Jr.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Cass Gilbert


text: Talk:Marcel Duchamp

title: Talk:Marcel Duchamp


text:
Michael Graves

Michael Graves (July 9, 1934 – March 12, 2015) was an American architect, designer, and educator, and principal of Michael Graves and Associates and Michael Graves Design Group. He was a member of The New York Five and the Memphis Group and a professor of architecture at Princeton University for nearly forty years. Following his own partial paralysis in 2003, Graves became an internationally recognized advocate of health care design.

Graves' global portfolio of architectural work ranged from the Ministry of Culture in The Hague, a post office for Celebration, Florida, a prominent expansion of the Denver Public Library to numerous commissions for Disney and the scaffolding design for the 2000 Washington Monument restoration. He was recognized for his influence on architectural movements, including New Urbanism, New Classicism, and postmodernism. His postmodern buildings include the Portland Building in Portland, Oregon and the Humana Building in Louisville, Kentucky.

For his architectural work, Graves received a fellowship of the American Institute of Architects as well as its highest award, the AIA Gold Medal (2001). He was trustee of the American Academy in Rome and was the president of its Society of Fellows from 1980 to 1984. He received the American Prize for Architecture, the National Medal of Arts (1999) and the Driehaus Architecture Prize (2012).

Graves produced both high end and mass consumer product designs for several companies, including Alessi in Italy and Target and J. C. Penney in the United States. The New York Times described Graves as "one of the most prominent and prolific American architects of the latter 20th century, who designed more than 350 buildings around the world but was perhaps best known for [a] teakettle and pepper mill."

Early life and education
Graves was born on July 9, 1934, in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Erma (Lowe) and Thomas B. Graves. He grew up in the city's suburbs and later credited his mother for suggesting that he become an engineer or an architect.

Graves graduated from Indianapolis's Broad Ripple High School in 1952 and earned a bachelor's degree in architecture in 1958 from the University of Cincinnati. During college he also became a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. Graves earned a master's degree in architecture from Harvard University in 1959.

After graduation from college, Graves spent a year working in George Nelson's office. Nelson, a furniture designer and the creative director for Herman Miller, exposed Graves to the work of fellow designers Charles and Ray Eames and Alexander Girard. In 1960 Graves won the American Academy in Rome's Prix de Rome (Rome Prize) and spent the next two years at the academy in Italy. Graves describes himself as "transformed" by his experience in Rome: "I discovered new ways of seeing and analyzing both architecture and landscape."

Career
Graves began his career in 1962 as a professor of architecture at Princeton University, where he taught for nearly four decades and later helped to establish the Michael Graves College at Kean University in Union Township, New Jersey, and established his own architectural firm in 1964 at Princeton, New Jersey. Graves worked as an architect in public practice designing a variety of buildings that included private residences, university buildings, hotel resorts, hospitals, retail and commercial office buildings, museums, civic buildings, and monuments. During a career that spanned nearly fifty years, Graves and his firm designed more than 350 buildings around the world, and an estimated 2,000 household products.

Princeton University
In 1962, after two years of studies in Rome, Graves returned to the United States and moved to Princeton, New Jersey, where he accepted a professorship at the Princeton University School of Architecture. Graves taught at Princeton for thirty-nine years while simultaneously practicing architecture. He retired as the Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture, Emeritus, in 2001.

Although Graves was a longtime faculty member at Princeton and trained many of its architecture students, the university did not allow its faculty to practice their profession on its campus. As a result, Graves was never commissioned to design a building for the university. Later in his life he contributed to the founding of a new college, which bears his name at Kean University.

Architect
In his early years as an architect, Graves did designs for home renovation projects in Princeton. In 1964 he founded the architectural firm of Michael Graves & Associate in Princeton and remained in public practice there until the end of his life. His firm maintained offices in Princeton, New Jersey, and in New York City, but his residence in Princeton served as his design studio, home office and library, and a place to display the many objects he collected during his world travels. Nicknamed "The Warehouse", it also displayed many of the household items he designed. After Graves's death, Kean University acquired his former home and studio in Princeton, along with two adjacent buildings.

Modernist
Graves spent much of the late 1960s and early 1970s designing modernist residences.

His first commission was the Hanselman House in Fort Wayne, Indiana, a design completed in 1971. The modernist structure built for $55,000 received an American Institute of Architects Honor Award in 1975. The New York Times described the home as "another of Graves's experiments in cubist‐influenced spatial manipulations" and cited the obvious influence of Le Corbusier on Graves' work.

Built for friends he met in high school, the home went up for sale in 2017 for $264,888. The four-bedroom residence features a Graves-painted mural in the living room signed by the architect during a visit to the home in 2000.

He also designed the Snyderman House in Fort Wayne (1972, destroyed by fire in 2002).

Graves also became one of the New York Five, along with Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey, John Hejduk and Richard Meier. This informal group of Princeton and New York City architects, also known as the Whites due to the predominant color of their architectural work, espoused a pure form of modernism characterized by clean lines and minimal ornamentation. The New York Five became the "standard-bearers of a movement to elevate modernist architectural form into a serious theoretical pursuit." The book, Five Architects (1973) describes some of their early work.

Postmodernist
In the late 1970s, Graves shifted away from modernism to pursue Postmodernism and New Urbanism design for the remainder of his career. He began by sketching designs that had Cubist-inspired elements and strong, saturated colors. Postmodernism allowed Graves to introduce his humanist vision of classicism, as well as his sense of irony and humor. His designs, notable for their "playful style" and "colorful facades," were a "radical departure" from his earlier work. The Plocek Residence (1977), a private home in Warren Township, New Jersey, was among the first of his designs in this new style.

Graves designed some of his most iconic buildings in the early 1980s, including the Portland Building. The fifteen-story Portland Municipal Services Building, his first major public commission, opened in 1982 in downtown Portland, Oregon. The "monolithic cube" with decorated facades and colorful, oversized columns is "considered a seminal Postmodern work" and one of Graves's best-known works of architecture. The celebrated but controversial municipal office also became an icon for the city of Portland and subject to an ongoing preservation debate. Regarded as the first major built example of postmodern architecture in a tall office building, the Portland Building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. Although it faced demolition in 2014, the city government decided to proceed with a renovation, estimated to cost $195 million.

As a result of the notoriety he received from the Portland Building design, Graves was awarded other major commissions in the 1980s and 1990s. Notable buildings from this period include the Humana Building (1982) in Kentucky and the Newark Museum expansion (1982) in New Jersey. Some architecture critics, including Paul Goldberger of The New York Times, consider the Humana Building, a skyscraper in Louisville, Kentucky, one of Graves's finest building designs. TIME magazine also claimed it was a commercial icon for the city of Louisville and one of the best buildings of the 1980s. The San Juan Capistrano Library (1982) in California, another project from this period, shows his interpretation of the Mission Revival style.

Graves and his firm also designed several buildings for the Walt Disney Company in the postmodern style. These include the Team Disney headquarters in Burbank, California; the Dolphin (1987) and Swan (1988) resorts at Walt Disney World in Florida; and Disney's Hotel New York (1989) at Disneyland Paris. Patrick Burke, the project architect for the two resort hotels in Florida, commented that the Walt Disney Company described Graves's designs as "entertainment architecture." In addition to the Swan and Dolphin hotel buildings, Graves's firm designed their original interiors, furnishings, signage, and artwork. Graves's other notable commissions for buildings that were completed in the 1990s include an expansion of the Denver Public Library (1990) and the renovation of the Detroit Institute of Arts (1990).

Postmodern architecture did not have a long-lasting popularity and some of Graves's clients rejected his ideas. For example, his design for an expansion of Marcel Breuer's Whitney Museum of American Art building in New York City in the mid-1980s was highly contested and never built due to architect and local opposition. Graves's designs for a planned Phoenix Municipal Government Center complex were among the project's finalists, but his concept was not selected as the winning entry.

Graves's prominence as a postmodernist architect may have reached its peak during the 1980s and in the early 1990s, but he continued to practice as an architect until his death in 2015. Later works include the O'Reilly Theater (1996) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; the NCAA Hall of Champions in Indianapolis, Indiana; and 425 Fifth Avenue (2000) in New York City, among others. Graves also received recognition for his multi-year renovation of his personal residence in Princeton. International projects included the Sheraton Miramar Hotel (1997) in El Gouna, Egypt, and the Hard Rock Hotel in Singapore. One of the last projects that Michael Graves and Associates was involved in before Graves's death was the Louwman Museum (2010) in The Hague, Netherlands. Gary Lapera, a principal and studio head of Michael Graves and Associates, designed the museum, also known as the Lowman Collection and the National Automobile Museum of the Netherlands, which houses more than 230 cars.

Product and furniture designer
In addition to his architecture, Graves became a noted designer of consumer products. His distinctive style was well known among the general public in the United States in 1980s and 1990s, when he began designing household products for major clients such as the Target Corporation, Alessi, Steuben, and The Walt Disney Company. Over the years, the Michael Graves Design Group, a part of his design firm, designed and brought to market more than 2,000 products.

In the early 1980s, Ettore Sottsass recruited Graves to become a member of Memphis, a postmodern design group based in Milan, Italy. Graves began designing consumer products such as furniture and home accessories. Especially notable is his "Plaza" dressing table. Around the same time, Graves became associated with Alessi, a high-end Italian kitchenware manufacturer. Graves designed a sterling silver tea service for Alessi in 1982, a turning point in his career, and he was no longer known solely as an architect. After the $25,000 tea service began to attract buyers, Alberto Alessi commissioned Graves to design a moderate-priced kettle for his company. In 1985 Graves designed his iconic a stainless-steel teakettle (9093 stovetop kettle).

The kettle featured a red, bird-shaped whistle at the end of the spout. It remained the company's top-selling product for fifteen years. In honor of its thirtieth anniversary in 2015, Graves designed a special edition version with a dragon replacing the kettle's bird-shaped whistle. In Italy in 1987, clock on display Apollodoro Gallery, seventh event The Hour of Architects, with Hans Hollei, Arata Isozaki, Ettore Sottsass, Paolo Portoghesi, paintings by Paolo Salvati, Rome.

In 1997–98, when Graves designed the scaffolding used in the restoration of the Washington Monument in Washington D.C., he met Ron Johnson, a Target executive who appreciated his product designs. (The Target Corporation contributed $6 million toward restoration of the monument.) The result of their acquaintance was the formation of a business relationship between Graves and the U.S. retailer that lasted until 2012. Graves began the collaboration with Target by designing a half-dozen products for the mass-consumer market. His collection of housewares began selling in Target stores in January 1999.

In 1998, Target Corporation commissioned Graves to design a model home to showcase the new line of housewares, but Graves went a step further. He designed "Cedar Gables," contemporary house in Minnetonka, Minnesota, complete with custom furniture, lighting, fixtures, and other unique items, making it only one of three homes he designed and furnished. By 2009, however, Graves noted that the house "doesn't have a wow factor. That gets old quickly." When the partnership with Target ended in 2012, Graves had designed more than 500 objects for the retailer.

Increasingly concerned about Target's dwindling partnerships with outside designers, Graves decided to explore other relationships for marketing his consumer products. After Johnson became CEO of J.C. Penney in 2011, he and Graves reached an agreement for Graves to design products exclusively for Penney's. Graves also created products for other manufacturers. In the 1990s for example, Graves created the Mickey Mouse Gourmet Collection for Moeller Design with the Walt Disney Company's approval. The collection of kitchenware and tabletop items was initially sold through the Walt Disney Company's retail stores and later offered at other retail outlets.

In 2013, Graves designed what became known as the “Hitler teapot” for department store JCPenney, which garnered controversy due to its perceived resemblance to Adolf Hitler.

In addition to housewares, Graves was involved in a variety of other design projects that included sets and costumes for New York City's Joffrey Ballet; a shopping bag for Bloomingdale's department store; jewelry for Cleto Munari of Milan, Italy; vinyl flooring for Tajima, a Japanese company; and rugs for Vorwerk, a German firm. In 1994 Graves opened a small retail store named the Graves Design Store in Princeton, New Jersey, where shoppers could purchase his designs and reproductions of his artwork. At that time Graves had designed products for more than fifty manufacturers.

Later years
Graves retired as a professor of architecture at Princeton University in 2001, but remained active in his architecture and design firm. He also became an advocate for the disabled in the last decade of his life. When Graves became paralyzed from the waist down in 2003, the result of a spinal cord infection, the use of a wheelchair heightened his awareness of the needs of the disabled. After weeks of hospitalization and physical therapy, Graves adapted his home to suit his accessibility needs and resumed his architectural and design work.

In addition to other types of buildings and household products, Graves designed wheelchairs, hospital furnishings, hospitals, and disabled veteran's housing. Graves also became a "reluctant health expert," as well as an internationally recognized advocate for accessible design. In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed Graves to an administrative role in the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (also known as the Access Board). The independent agency addresses accessibility concerns for people with disabilities.

In 2014, a year before his death, Graves helped to establish and plan the Michael Graves College, which includes The School of Public Architecture at Kean University in Union Township, New Jersey. Kean University's Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies program began in 2015; its Master of Architecture program is slated to begin in 2019. As part of gift from Graves's estate, in 2016 the university acquired The Warehouse at 44 Patton Avenue in Princeton, New Jersey, Graves's former home and studio, and two adjacent buildings. The university plans to use the facility as an educational research center for its School of Public Architecture, although its main campus and its School of Public Architecture are located about forty miles away in Union, New Jersey.

Personal life
Graves' marriage to Gail Devine in 1955 ended in divorce; his subsequent marriage to Lucy James in 1972 also ended in divorce. Graves was the father of three children, two sons and a daughter.

Death
Graves died at his home in Princeton, New Jersey, on March 12, 2015, at the age of 80, and is buried at Princeton Cemetery.

Legacy
Graves favored a "humanistic approach to architecture and urban planning" and was a major influence in late-twentieth-century architecture. Graves was among the most prolific and prominent American architects from the mid-1960s to the end of the twentieth century. Graves and his team designed more than 350 buildings in the Postmodern, New Classical, and New Urbanism styles for projects around the world. His architectural designs have been recognized as major influences in all three of these movements.

In naming Graves as a recipient of its national design award for lifetime achievement, the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum explained that Graves broadened "the role of the architect in society" and raised "public interest in good design as essential to the quality of everyday life." Graves and his firm designed more than 2,000 consumer products during his lifetime. He was especially noted for his domestic housewares. Many Graves-designed products were sold through mass-market U.S. retailers such as Target and J. C. Penney, but his best-known product is the iconic kettle that he designed in 1985 for Alessi, an Italian housewares manufacturer. As an advocate for the needs of the disabled, Graves used his skills as an architect and designer "to improve healthcare experience for patients, families and clinicians."

Awards and honors

 * In 1979 Graves was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
 * Graves served as a trustee of the American Academy in Rome and was the president of its Society of Fellows from 1980 to 1984.
 * In 1986 Graves received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.
 * In 1994 he was awarded the American Prize for Architecture
 * President Bill Clinton awarded Graves the National Medal of Arts in 1999.
 * Graves was voted GQ's Man of the Year in 1999.
 * Graves was awarded the American Institute of Architects' AIA Gold Medal in 2001. His career was also recognized with an AIA Presidential Citation and the Topaz Medallion from the AIA/ACSA.
 * Graves was the first recipient of the Michael Graves Lifetime Achievement Award from the AIA-NJ.
 * Graves received honorary degrees from the University of Miami in 2001.
 * In 2002 the Indiana Historical Society named Graves as an Indiana Living Legend.
 * In 2009 Graves was named a Design Futures Council Senior Fellow, one of the twelve honorees selected that year.
 * In 2010 Graves was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.
 * The Center for Health Design and Healthcare Design magazine recognized Graves as one of the top twenty-five "most influential people in healthcare design" in 2010.
 * Graves was named the Driehaus Architecture Prize in 2012.
 * Graves was awarded an honorary degree from Emory University in 2013.
 * From October 13, 2014, to April 5, 2015, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Graves's firm, Michael Graves Architecture and Design, the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey, held a retrospective exhibition, "Michael Graves: Past as Prologue."
 * On November 22, 2014, the Architectural League of New York held a daylong symposium in his honor at the Parsons School of Design. Several prominent architects such as Steven Holl and Peter Eisenman, as well as Graves served as guests and lecturers.
 * In 2015 the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum posthumously awarded Graves a National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Works

 * Hanselmann House, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1968
 * Benacerraf House, Princeton, New Jersey, 1969
 * Snyderman House, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 1972
 * Wageman House, Princeton, New Jersey, 1974
 * Fargo-Moorhead Cultural Center Bridge, Fargo, North Dakota, 1977
 * Plocek Residence, Warren, New Jersey, 1977 (Graves' first postmodern design)
 * Roma Interrotta Exhibition, Rome, Italy, 1978
 * Portland Building, Portland, Oregon, 1982
 * Humana Building, Louisville, Kentucky, 1982
 * Newark Museum expansion, Newark, New Jersey, 1982
 * San Juan Capistrano Library, San Juan Capistrano, California, 1982
 * Riverbend Music Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1984
 * Aventine Mixed Use Development, La Jolla, California, 1985
 * Crown American Building, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1986
 * Team Disney headquarters building, Burbank, California, 1986
 * Graves Residence ("The Warehouse"), Princeton, New Jersey, 1986
 * Shiseido Health Club, Tokyo, Japan, 1986
 * Clos Pegase Winery, Calistoga, California, 1987
 * Bryan Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, 1987
 * Dolphin Resort, Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida, 1987
 * Swan Resort, Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida, 1987
 * Metropolis master plan, Los Angeles, California, 1988
 * Tajima Office Building, Tokyo, Japan, 1988
 * Disney's Hotel New York, Euro Disney Resort, now Disneyland Paris, Marne-la-Vallée, France, 1989
 * Ten Peachtree Place, Atlanta, Georgia, 1989
 * Clark County Library and Theater, Las Vegas, Nevada, 1990
 * Dairy Barn renovation, Harbourton, New Jersey, 1990
 * Denver Public Library, Denver, Colorado, 1990
 * Detroit Institute of Arts master plan, Detroit, Michigan, 1990
 * Fukuoka Hyatt Hotel and Office Building, Fukuoka, Japan, 1990
 * Kasumi Research and Training Center, Tsukaba, Japan, 1990
 * Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 1990
 * Malibu House (private residence), Malibu, California, 1990
 * Onjuku Town Hall, Onjuku, Japan, 1990
 * Engineering Center, University of Cincinnati College of Engineering, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1990
 * Youngstown Historical Center of Industry and Labor, Youngstown, Ohio, 1990
 * Arts and Sciences Building, Stockton University, Pomona, New Jersey, 1991
 * Thomson Consumer Electronics Americas headquarters, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1992
 * U.S. Courthouse renovation, Trenton, New Jersey, 1992
 * Astrid Park Plaza Hotel and Business Center, Antwerp, Belgium, 1993
 * International Finance Corporation Headquarters of the World Bank, Washington, D.C., 1993
 * Michael C. Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, 1993
 * Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, The Hague, Netherlands, 1993
 * Nexus Momochi Residential Tower, Fukuoka, Japan, 1993
 * Archdiocesan Center, Newark, New Jersey, 1993
 * Rome Reborn Exhibition, Washington, D.C., 1993
 * U.S. Post Office, Celebration, Florida, 1993
 * 1500 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Florida, 1994
 * Ocean Steps Retail Center with 1500 Ocean Drive, Miami Beach, Florida, 1994
 * One Port Center (Delaware River Port Authority headquarters), Camden, New Jersey, 1994
 * Pura-Williams House, Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts, 1994
 * Miramar Resort Hotel, El Gouna, Egypt, 1995
 * Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, Topeka, Kansas, 1995
 * The Engineering Research Center, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1995
 * Rare Books Library, American Academy, Rome, Italy, 1996
 * Charles E. Beatley Jr. Central Library, Alexandria, Virginia, 1996
 * House At Indian Hill, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1996
 * Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1996
 * Lake Hills Country Club, Seoul, Korea, 1996
 * Miele Americas Headquarters, Princeton, New Jersey, 1996
 * O'Reilly Theater, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1996
 * French Institute⁄Alliance Française Library, New York City, 1997
 * De Luwte House, Loenen aan de Vecht, Netherlands, 1997
 * North Hall Residence, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1997
 * El Gouna Golf Club, El Gouna, Egypt, 1997
 * El Gouna Golf Hotel, El Gouna, Egypt, 1997
 * El Gouna Golf Villas, El Gouna, Egypt, 1997
 * Fortis/AG Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium, 1997
 * Fukuoka Office Building, Fukuoka, Japan, 1997
 * Hyatt Hotel Taba Heights, Taba Heights, Egypt, 1997
 * Intercontinental Hotel, Taba Heights, Egypt, 1997
 * Laurel Hall, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, 1997
 * NCAA Hall of Champions and headquarters, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1997
 * U.S. Courthouse, Washington, D.C., 1997
 * Bristol/Savoy Towers (Ten Good City), Fukuoka, Japan, 1998
 * Cedar Gables House, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1998
 * Impala Building, New York City, 1998
 * Castalia Building (Ministry of Public Health), The Hague, Netherlands, 1998
 * Saint Martin's College Library, Lacey, Washington, 1998
 * Master plan, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, 1999
 * Laurel Hall expansion, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, New Jersey, 1999
 * Philadelphia Eagles/Novacare Training Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1999
 * Pittsburgh Cultural District Service Center, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1999
 * Private residence, Harbourton, New Jersey, 1999
 * Martel, Brown and Jones Colleges at Rice University, Houston, Texas, 1999
 * Singapore National Library Competition, Singapore, 1999
 * Target House Fountain, Memphis, Tennessee, 1999
 * Washington Monument scaffolding, Washington, D.C., 1999
 * Watch Technicum, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 1999
 * 425 Fifth Avenue, New York City, 2000
 * Capital Regional Medical Center, Tallahassee Community Hospital, Tallahassee, Florida, 2000
 * Famille Tsukishima Apartment Building, Tokyo, Japan, 2000
 * Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas Houston Branch, Houston, Texas, 2000
 * Hart Production Studios, San Francisco, California, 2000
 * Newark Museum Science Gallery, Newark, New Jersey, 2000
 * Perseus Office, Washington, D.C., 2000
 * Private residence, Lake Geneva, Switzerland, 2000
 * U.S. Embassy Compound (embassy and housing), Seoul, South Korea, 2000
 * Children's Theatre Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2001
 * Fukuoka Office Building, Fukuoka, Japan, 2001
 * Kasteel Holterveste, De Haverleij, Netherlands, 2001
 * Mahler 4, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2001
 * Michael C. Carlos Museum renovation, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, 2001
 * Three On The Bund, Shanghai, China, 2001
 * Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, New Jersey, 2002
 * U.S. Department of Transportation headquarters, Washington, D.C., 2002
 * Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics/Kohn Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, 2002
 * National Museum of Prehistory, Taitung, Taiwan, 2002
 * Arts and Science Building, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, New Jersey, 2002
 * New Jersey State Police Training Center and headquarters, Trenton, New Jersey, 2002
 * Resort master plan, Canary Islands, Spain, 2002
 * South Campus master plan, Rice University, Houston, Texas, 2002
 * Saint Mary's Catholic Church, Rockledge, Florida, 2002
 * Target Club Wedd House contest prize, 2002
 * Campus master plan, Florida Institute of Technology Melbourne, Florida, 2003
 * Sigma Chi fraternity house, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., 2003
 * Housing For Martin House, Trenton, New Jersey, 2003
 * The Pinnacle and 260 Main Street, White Plains, New York, 2003
 * U.S. Courthouse, Nashville, Tennessee, 2003
 * Alter Hall, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2004
 * Indianapolis Art Center master plan, Indianapolis, Indiana, 2004
 * Maxwell Place On The Hudson, Interiors Block A, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2004
 * Chancellor Green Interiors, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 2004
 * Riverwalk 2, Nishinippon Institute of Technology Design School, Kitakyushu, Japan, 2004
 * Trump International Hotel, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, 2004
 * School Of Business, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, 2004
 * 701 E. Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland, 2005
 * Azulera Resort Hotel and Residences, Brasilito Bay Guanacaste, Costa Rica, 2005
 * Burj Dubai Towers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 2005
 * The Enclave Residential Condominiums, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, 2005
 * College Of Psychology and Autism, Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Florida, 2005
 * Hyatt Hotel, Beirut, Lebanon, 2005
 * Luxury Condominium Towers, Beirut, Lebanon, 2005
 * Maxwell Place On The Hudson, Interiors Block B, Hoboken, New Jersey, 2005
 * Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, Winchester, Virginia, 2005
 * Paterson Public Schools complex, Paterson, New Jersey, 2005
 * Riverside Park residential development master plan, Fairfax County, Virginia, 2005
 * Springhill Lake master plan, Greenbelt, Maryland, 2005
 * Storehouse prototype retail store, West Palm Beach, Florida, 2005
 * Allegria Residence, 6th of October City, Egypt, 2006
 * The Falls at Lake Travis community master plan, Austin, Texas, 2006
 * Four Seasons Residence at Town Lake, Austin, Texas, 2006
 * Minneapolis Institute of Arts expansion, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2006
 * Notre Dame Club, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, Indiana, 2006
 * Private residence, Sentosa, Singapore, 2006
 * St. Regis Hotels & Resorts Cairo, Cairo, Egypt, 2006
 * Shake-a-Leg Residences, Miami, Florida, 2006
 * Saint Coletta of Greater Washington, Washington, D.C., 2006
 * Wyndham Hotel prototypes, 2006
 * School of Nursing, Columbia University, New York City, 2007
 * Community master plan, New Cairo, Egypt, 2007
 * Detroit Institute of Arts major renovation and expansion, Detroit, Michigan, 2007
 * MarketFair Retail Center, Princeton, New Jersey, 2007
 * Equestrian City Tower, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 2008
 * Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, Arts Council of Princeton, Princeton, New Jersey, 2008
 * Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy and Department of Physics Building, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, 2009
 * Alter Hall, Fox School of Business, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2009
 * Wu-Wilcox Halls additions and interiors, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 2006
 * Resorts World at Sentosa, Singapore, 2010
 * Louwman Museum (National Automobile Museum), The Hague, Netherlands, 2010
 * PS/IS 42, Arverne, New York, 2012

title: Michael Graves