Michael Graves Quotes

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.

If I have a style, I am not aware of it.

I once got a postcard from a French poet who wrote - "you don't know me but I'm always very grumpy when I get up in morning. But when I get up now I put the tea kettle on, and when it starts to sing it makes me smile - goddamn you!" That's what happened when we first designed it - we got a lot of mail.

In any architecture, there is an equity between the pragmatic function and the symbolic function.

The design of the building addresses the public nature of both the urban context and the internal program. In order to reinforce the building's associative or mimetic qualities, the facades are organized in a classical three-part division of base, middle or body, and attic or head.

Architectural and product designs have a narrative capacity - you can start to tell a story about them and imagine a lot of things.

I wouldn't have been a health care nut if it hadn't been for my paralysis, so something good came from this.

I've always believed that what can make a domestic setting truly home is the infusion of a cultural dimension.

I don't care what people call me, labels have the negative value of making smaller boundaries for people.

I stayed true to what I thought was good design no matter who it was for.

The dialogue of architecture has been centered too long around the idea of truth.

My favorite is the garlic press. I think it's beautiful as an object. But the awkward part of it all is that I don't use it much because I'm allergic to garlic.

It was always my goal to 'up the ante' on good design and rye devoted much of my career to this.

I have no requirements for a style of architecture.

Architects love to rethink a project - that's what we do.

If something is successful, like a house or a kettle, in this case, it's a great compliment when someone wants another one.

I learned in architecture that you have to have a real plan.

You have to have a client, they have to have distribution, start-up money, and have a vision of where it's going to go. All this has to be settled before you start, or else your work is just a story.

I know that's not something that people like to do - identify a favorite. But I do.

I don't believe in morality in architecture.

I have architects write to me and ask me: How do you - and what do you do to - design the magic thing? I answer that very carefully. It's not necessarily about what you do, but the clients you do it for. You should write to Target, not me.

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.

In designing hardware to be used every day, it was important to keep both the human aspects and the machine in mind. What looks good also often feels good.

In America, writers are afforded the freedom to express themselves in unlimited manners. Creative liberty is a privilege.

The Alessi relationship and the Target one has broadened the role of architects in society and broadened the concept that design belongs to everyone.