Michael Graves Quotes

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

My favorite project is always the next one.

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.

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

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.

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 have no requirements for a style of architecture.

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

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

I don't believe in morality in architecture.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Alberto Alessi had asked a dozen architects to design a sterling silver tea service - with a teapot, a coffee pot, sugar, creamer, a spoon, and a tray. Our brief was that it didn't matter if it didn't work and cost wasn't the issue. It was a promotional project, not a commercial enterprise, and was going to be showcased in museums. And the coffee and tea piazza, as mine was called, received a great response. It was wonderful to walk into the Whitney museum and see all these objects on the first floor.

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