Michael Graves Quotes

I think that the point of being an architect is to help raise the experience of everyday living, even a little. Putting a window where people would really like one. Making sure a shaving mirror in a hotel bathroom is at the right angle. Making bureaucratic buildings that are somehow cheerful.

I try firstly to make buildings humane.

One of the stated goals of the postmodern movement in architecture was a greater sensitivity to the people who live in or use newly designed buildings.

I don't design for myself. I design something keeping in mind that it has to please a lot of women.

Buildings should serve people, not the other way around.

I design for real people. I think of our customers all the time. There is no virtue whatsoever in creating clothing or accessories that are not practical.

Form must never trump function. Some objects are made to look so smooth, you don't know where to pick them up or how to turn them on. If I'm designing a garlic press or cheese grater, I need my hand to fit comfortably on it. I like to know, instinctively, how to use it.

A lot of people don't get it, but I design from the inside out so that the finished product looks inevitable somehow. I think it's important to create spaces that people like to be in, that are humanistic.

I always design the hat with the wearer in mind; otherwise, it's an inanimate object.

Architecture is basically the design of interiors, the art of organizing interior space.

The tubular steel chair is surely rational from technical and constructive points of view. It is light, suitable for mass production, and so on. But steel and chromium surfaces are not satisfactory from the human point of view.

The general public will almost always stand behind the traditionalists. In the public eye, architecture is about comfort, about shelter, about bricks and mortar.

I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It's not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.

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 realize that having a style would be very beneficial for my practice from a marketing standpoint, but I can't do it. I believe my responsibilities as an architect are to design the most appropriate building for the place. Each place has a distinct culture and function, which for me requires an appropriate answer.

Good architecture should be a projection of life itself, and that implies an intimate knowledge of biological, social, technical, and artistic problems.

I love the idea of web design that maximises expressiveness over functionality.

Design helps shape our everyday interactions through products, furniture, objects, or experiences.

I've stayed in enough hotels so I really know what works and what doesn't design-wise.

Design means being good, not just looking good.

Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like. People think it's this veneer - that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.

I think there is a new awareness in this 21st century that design is as important to where and how we live as it is for museums, concert halls and civic buildings.

Architects in the past have tended to concentrate their attention on the building as a static object. I believe dynamics are more important: the dynamics of people, their interaction with spaces and environmental condition.

An architect must remember that the people working or living in his building need space - to dream, to be quiet, to find beauty somewhere.

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.