THEORY OF DESIGNPRESENTED BY:

MOHD SIDDQUI

MEGHA GHASOLIYA

MOHIT DANGI

MOHIT SHRIVASTAV

AR. MICHAEL GRAVES

Michael Graves was born on July 9, 1934, in Indianapolis, Indiana. He studied at Harvard University and designed modernist private houses before adopting postmodernism in the 1970s. He’s known for designing such structures as the Portland Building, the Humana Building in Louisville and the Indianapolis Art Center. His other projects include the restoration of the Washington Monument and the creation of a line of items for Target. Graves died at the age of 80 on March 12, 2015, in Princeton, New Jersey.

LEGACY

In 2003, Graves was paralyzed from the waist down after he suffered a spinal cord infection. He then became a force in advocating for the disabled, both through his acts and designs. For his years of accomplishment, Graves received many honors, among them the National Medal of Arts, the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture, to name just a few.

WORKS

BUILDINGS AND PROJESCTSHe directed the firm Michael Graves & Associates, which has offices in Princeton and in New York City. Graves spent much of the 1970s designing modernist residences, such as the Snyderman House in Fort Wayne, Indiana. One of his most famous works, the Portland Building, which opened in 1982 in Portland, Oregon, is regarded as the first major built example of postmodern architecture. Some of his most notable completed buildings include the Humana Building (a skyscraper in Louisville, Kentucky),the Denver Public Library, and the renovation of the Detroit Institute of Arts. He built many buildings for the Walt Disney Company, including the company headquarters in Burbank, California, Disney's Hotel New York at Disneyland Paris, and the Swan and Dolphin resorts at Walt Disney World. In the 1980s, he also designed an expansion for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, Graves also received recognition for his multi-year renovation of his personal residence in Princeton, nicknamed "The Warehouse“.

Product and furniture designIn 1985, Graves designed a stainless steel teakettle featuring a red whistle shaped like a bird for the Italian company Alessi, which became the company's all-time bestselling product. Graves designed the scaffolding used for the restoration of the Washington Monument in Washington DC. During that assignment, which Target Corp sponsored, he met a Target executive who appreciated his product design and a relationship was formed. He began designing consumer products for the mass market and Target sold his products through their stores. In 1998, Target commissioned Graves to design a model home to showcase the new line of housewares; Graves went a step further did a complete design of the contemporary house with custom furniture, lighting, fixtures, and other unique items.

WALT DISNEY WORLD DOLPHIN & SWAN HOTEL

LOCATION : WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT, FLORIDA DESIGN STARTED : 1987 DESIGN COMPLETED : 1990 AREA : 2- MILLION SQ. FEET STRUCTURE : REINFORCED CONCRETE & STEEL

SUPERSTRUCTURE MATERIAL : EXTERIOR INSULATION & FINISH SYSTEM

WITH PAINTED MURALS.

THE 1,500 ROOM WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT DOLPHIN FACES ITS COMPOSITION PROJECT,THE 758-ROOM WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT SWAN HOTEL, ACROSS A LARGE CRESCENT SHAPED ARTIFICIAL LAKE.

BOTH HOTELS CONTAIN EXTENSIVE CONVENTION FACILITIES, RESTAURANTS, AND RETAIL SHOPS.

GRAVES WAREHOUSE RESIDENCE

Michael Graves house in the university town of Princeton, New Jersey, is a highly personal work by an architect best known for large-scale projects.

• The residence is being renovated from a ruined warehouse. So Graves often address his house as ‘warehouse’.

• Modest in scale and virtually invisible from the public street, the ‘Warehouse’ is nonetheless a symbol of Graves’ passionate belief in an architecture which is both natural and humane. Its quiet grandeur reflects his final rejection of the machine aesthetic of the Modern Movement.

• The house is a personal statement and a private retreat, where Graves keep the furniture, pictures, books, sculptures and other objects accumulated during a lifetime of collecting.

• Graves like John Soane, sees his house as a place to display his collections, which will one day be available to the interested public. John Soane’s museum house has always been an inspiration for Graves.

• The warehouse is an L-shaped building, consisting of a northern wing and an eastern wing.

• The original north wing, hidden from the street, had large doors where trucks regularly disgorged loads of household accessories.

• The later wing, at right angle, was much narrower. It was here that Graves first made his home. He installed a kitchen and bathroom and lived like a student at first.

• In mid eighties with his practice booming, he tackled the northern wing, bringing in other members of his office to assist and began work on the garden. This second phase of work took four years and was followed by a year of work in the kitchen wing.

• The formal inauguration of house take place in 1992, when a conference of US Governors took place in Princeton and Graves held a garden party for the Governors’ spouses.

DRAWINGS

GROUND FLOOR PLAN

DRAWINGS

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

EXTERIOR• The exterior has a quiet monumentality, which derives from the

vernacular barns and farmhouses of the Italian countryside.

• Graves have rejected ‘canonic’ classicism in favour of a freer and more ‘natural’ approach to design and stresses that the house is intended as a practical place to live rather than a monument, despite his long term plans to preserve it and possibly house an archive of his work there.

• The elevation of the house cannot be read in terms of conventional classical design. Informal and vernacular in inspiration, they equally have an almost Cubist abstraction which suggests connection with Graves’ earlier houses.

• The chimney stack in particular, is a boldly expressed sculptural design.

• The unity of house and garden is key theme. Graves seeks an idealized landscape, recalling those he loves to paint in Italy, and planting is subordinated to an overall architectural intent. The warm and slightly irregular texture of the stucco, contributes greatly to the overall effect of the exterior.

WORKSPACE | STUDY

• The house is close to Graves’ office, but he occasionally works in here and keeps a small functional study room on the first floor.

• He often expresses himself in the delicate, enigmatic water colours he paints, on his tours.

• Study room is lit by the square window on the front wall.

LIVING ROOM• Graves’ living room is equally

made for comfort rather than mere show. The relatively low floor to ceiling heights in the building – dictated by the original structure – have been cleverly utilized to produce interiors of some intensity.

• Alcoves to the living room are distinctly Soanean in form, but reflects the dimension of original store rooms used by Princeton students to store everything from books to grand pianos.

• A terra-cotta-colored wall sets off furnishings that range from antiques to chairs designed by Michael Graves.

DINING ROOM

• The dining room is lit by tall metal framed windows which look onto the courtyard which seems to form a natural extension to the space.

• The chimney-piece has an austerity which is more Modernist than Classical.

• Many of the accessories in this room were sold as Grand Tour souvenirs a century ago. Michael designed the glass-and-metal centerpiece vessel for Steuben (Manufacturer of handmade art glass and crystal).

• The Warehouse is a highly personal building, which expresses not just Michael Graves, master builder, but equally Graves the sceptic and questioner of orthodoxies, whether modern or ‘traditional’. The house is clearly both modern and traditional.

• If its plan is essentially Classical and its use of light and shade specifically Soanean, the easy flow of the spaces and the essential informality of the building provide a reminder of its architect’s roots in the Modern movement

• The Warehouse is indeed, a clear statement of a lively traditionalism which remains a powerful strand in contemporary American design.

• Its quiet beauty is the work of a man who has played a key role in reshaping the face of architecture in the late twentieth century.