Michael Graves's creations, big and small, have made him America's most visible--and busiest--designer.

THE 1996 DREAM HOUSE could fit into the lobby of any hotel he has designed. Yet Michael Graves, one of America's most distinguished architects, was delighted when LIFE asked him to design our third annual Dream House. His assignment: Create a family-friendly house the size of the average new American home--about 2,100 square feet--that could be built for the average new-home price.

The challenge gave Graves a chance to offer an alternative to what he considers the "thinness" of most new homes. "They are the remnants of what we aspire to," he says, built with no character and on the cheap. Like the architects of LIFE's two previous Dream Houses, Graves was eager to show that every element of his style could fit into a modest space. "We've tuned and tuned and tuned," he says.

The 1996 LIFE Dream House has all his hallmark moves: symmetry, organization, a touch of formality. "It's ordered, but not rigid," says Graves, who frowns on what he calls "Silly Putty plans," houses where spaces are ill-defined, where guests enter and aren't sure which way to turn. He believes in varied rooms, more of them rather than less, sensibly arranged and finished with thoughtful, dramatic details. The effect: "To give a sense of well-being."

Graves, 61, who began his career as an austere modernist, now designs in a warmer style that is both traditional and highly innovative. Plenty of architects have taken to this "postmodernist" school; but Graves, considered its avatar, hates the label. "There's a very good word for what I do," he says. "Architect."

The architect works out of two 18th century houses that are a quick walk from his Princeton, N.J., home. His office, a former sitting room, is a slightly disheveled place full of books and antiques. Three dozen architects and designers work for him, many of them his former students at Princeton University, where he has taught for 34 years. Unlike most prominent architects, who are finicky about which jobs they take, "we just say yes," Graves says. "Too often, maybe, but we like to do what we do."

Graves's own dream house was a dilapidated, 1920's stucco-faced storage facility when he bought it in 1970. Over the past two decades he has transformed its warren of rooms into an Italianesque retreat. The Warehouse, as he calls his home, is his testing ground for new designs, many of which are in the LIFE Dream House. The Indiana-born Graves believes that everyone should have access to good design. "I love the fact that a Honda is looking more like a Mercedes," he says--and that a middle-class house can look like a master's.

By Jenny Allen Photography by Wayne Sorce Reporting: Janet Mason

Michael Graves interviews that have mentioned the Life Magazine Dream House project:

An interview by Royce N. Flippen III conducted February 5, 1997 —

RF:  Life magazine recently commissioned you to design its third annual Dream House [featured on the cover of the May 1996 issue]. What was that like?   MG:  The Life project was delightful. We loved the fact that they wanted something accessible. The challenge was to design a 2,000-square-foot house that could be built in the U.S. for an average cost of $200,000. We liked that cap--it really helps in making decisions. We had bids taken periodically along the way, to be sure we were in line with the target price. It's amazing how many calls we got afterwards, from people who said, "The house is interesting and we'd like to build it, but we'd like to make certain changes to accommodate our own situation." When someone says, "I love the discipline of your plan," well, that's music to my ears. To me, designing a house is like scoring music--I'm bringing order to the work. The key questions aren't just 'How big is the kitchen?' but also how the kitchen relates to the dining room, how someone would move through the house, and so on. I think several people are now building versions of the Dream House. One interesting project happened because we're designing a library for the city of Topeka, Kansas. As a fund-raiser for the library, they decided to build two Dream Houses in different parts of the city and auction them off. It's happening right now.

 

 

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