Quotes by Michael Graves

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

“Sometimes we need fellow radicals to remind us of what we, as writers, have set out to proclaim.”

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

“I don't believe in morality in architecture.”

“For my first apartment, when I was first married, I went to the lumberyard and bought stuff and made couches. My then-wife made cushions. I was really very interested in furniture. I was in school ...”

“I'm working on a school of architecture in China. It's rare that an architect gets to design a school of architecture, and here I get to do it. I'm so pleased that they asked me.”

“You can never draw enough or read enough - reading about architecture, in other words.”

“I have no requirements for a style of architecture.”

“I taught at Princeton for 39 years, and the school of architecture on the campus is the worst building on the campus.”

“Instead of using the machine as a metaphor for architecture, as Le Corbusier did, I use the human body. I want the public to know that it's them I'm designing for.”

“The oldest book I have is a treatise on architecture from the 17th century.”

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

“Good design to me is both appearance and functionality together. It's the experience that makes it good design.”

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

“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.”

“I believe well-designed places and objects can actually improve healing, while poor design can inhibit it.”

“It was always my goal to 'up the ante' on good design, and I've devoted much of my career to this.”

“When I started my own practice, I was criticized, not because I was doing product design but because, like Le Corbusier, I was insisting on paintings in all of my buildings. I would paint wall mura...”

“When I design a building, I'm making sure you and I can get to the front door, there's enough of a threshold for entry, and that the rooms are in a logical sequence.”