Michael Graves

Designer and Architect. Graves was a pioneering figure in postmodernism in the 1980s and '90s. In 1958, he earned a degree in architecture from the University of Cincinnati, then enrolled at Harvard's Graduate School of Design. After finishing at Harvard and spending two years at the American Academy in Rome, he joined the Princeton University faculty, where he would spend his entire teaching career and opening his own practice. Early on he, along with Richard Meier, Peter Eisenman, Charles Gwathmey and John Hejduk, was a member of the so-called New York Five, a collection of young architects who produced abstract designs. In 1979, he won a competition to design a municipal building in Portland, Oregon. The building, completed in 1982, is widely considered the first built example of postmodern architecture. Graves designed over 350 public buildings, including the Humana Building in Louisville, the Denver Public Library, as well as many buildings for the Walt Disney Company, including the company headquarters in Burbank, California. As a product designer, he created high-design housewares, such as tea kettles, dustpans, lamps, sheet sets and chessboards. In 1979, Graves was elected a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. In 1999, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts, in 2001 the AIA Gold Medal, in 2010 the AIA Topaz Medal, in 2012 the Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture, in 2010 he was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame and in 2014, the Michael Graves School of Architecture was established at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. In 2003, complications from a sinus infection left him paralyzed from the waist down. His paralysis left him in a wheelchair and he became a leading advocate, calling for reform in healthcare design. He and his firm also began designing wheelchairs, furniture for hospitals and even hospitals themselves. Graves died of natural causes.