This home in Fort Wayne, Indiana – designed for two of his high school friends – was Graves’ first architectural commission. His earliest designs show the strong influence of purist modernist principles, especially those of the great modernist master and theorist Le Corbusier.

While it displays modernist ideas and geometries, the Snyderman house in Fort Wayne, Indiana was also considered a transitional work for Graves, bridging from his earlier modernist phase to an emerging approach that would break away from strict principles of modernism. The Snyderman house was destroyed in a suspicious fire in 2002.

On a hillside in Warren, New Jersey, Graves heralded a new movement in architecture with this groundbreaking home design. Echoing elements of an Italian palazzo – but through an innovative and abstracted filter – Graves’ design for Plocek house did more than just break free of the constraints of modernism. He playfully connected with architectural history, helping to create a new vocabulary of design that would inform an emerging school of thought: postmodernism.

Photo: Norman McGrath

In a radical shift from his earliest abstract work – and from the stark modernist approach of many civic buildings that preceded it – the Portland Building truly put Graves’ postmodern ideas on the map.

With its vibrant colors and classical references, the 15-story Portland Building helped spark a new architectural movement. Its significance led the building to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

Above the front entrance is a statue of “Portlandia” that Graves conceived, designed, and named. The statue, installed in 1985, was executed in hammered copper by sculptor Raymond Kaskey.

Another archetypal example of postmodern design, the 26-story Humana corporate headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky influenced a generation of architects not only for its form, but for the way it responded to and complemented the urban environment around it. The building received a National AIA Honor Award, and TIME Magazine listed it as one of the 10 Best Buildings of the 1980s.

Graves’ controversial design for an addition to the Whitney Museum in New York (with the original structure designed by Marcel Breuer) was not built. Neighborhood opposition over the scale of the project, together with concern by other architects that the addition would negatively affect the aesthetic integrity of the existing structure, caused the plans to be dropped in 1989.

Photo: Michael Graves & Associates

With the Seven Dwarves serving as supporting columns, the façade of the Walt Disney Team Building in Burbank, California takes the wit and irony of Graves’ postmodernism to a new level.

Photograph by Robert Lautman, courtesy of the National Building Museum

Since he began working with Target Stores in the late 1990s, Michael Graves Design Group has designed over 2,000 household items for the retailer, from toasters and tea kettles to fly swatters, ironing boards, and toilet brushes.

This alliance helped to create and fuel an industry trend of mass retailers making good design (and name designers) affordable and accessible to their customers.

Photo: St. Coletta School of Greater Washington
©Maxwell MacKenzie

In Fort Belvoir, Virginia, Graves has designed prototype homes for wounded soldiers returning to active duty with the US Army. Intended to address the needs of soldiers dealing with a variety of disabilities, including traumatic brain injury, the prototype homes display innovative approaches to universal design, including sliding interior doors, an open floor plan, and technological advances such as video monitoring.

Photo: Jim Kirby, courtesy of Clark Realty Capital, LLC

Photo: Jim Kirby, courtesy of Clark Realty Capital, LLC