COLLECTION NAME:
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
mediaCollectionId
ArtArtHiAAH~7~7
Visual Resources Teaching Collection
Collection
true
Image Record ID:
aahi0000246
image_record_id
aahi0000246
Image Record ID
false
Work Title (display):
Portland Public Services Building
Work Dates (display):
1980
Work Dates type:
creation
Work Creator (display):
Michael Graves (American, born 1934)
Work Creator gender:
male
work_creator_or_agent_gender
male
Work Creator gender
false
Work Creator notes (display):
American architect, teacher, painter and designer. He studied architecture at the University of Cincinnati, OH (19548), and Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (MA 1959), and was a scholar at the American Academy in Rome (196062). He began a long teaching career at Princeton University, NJ, in 1962 and established a private practice in Princeton in 1964. Graves participated in a number of unexecuted projects and competition entries (19635) with Peter Eisenman and then built the first of several private houses of the 1960s and 1970s, the Hanselman House (1965), Fort Wayne, IN, based on a pristine white double cube with three layered façades. This was followed by the addition to the Benacerraf House (1969), Princeton, with geometric planes, coloured struts, free-form spatial effects and curves echoing elements of Le Corbusier's rationalist 'white' villas of the 1920s and 1930s. Both were included in the New york five exhibition at MOMA, New York, in 1969. Colour was increasingly used in Graves's early houses, however, culminating in the Snyderman House (1972), Fort Wayne, a light, open, geometric composition whose elements were all painted different colours following the design logic and referring to the heavily wooded context. Painting and drawing were important components of Graves's work, and he carried out several large murals in the 1970s. Painting also provided inspiration for architectural form. His approach borrowed much from Cubist art, particularly the layering and synchrony of imagery, structure and symbolism. His early work makes direct reference not only to Le Corbusier but also to such Cubist masters as Juan Gris, compounding fragments with overlays and superimposing perspective and structural grids contrasted with curves. In this historical interest in Modernism can be found the origins of Graves's later Post-modernism. After the mid-1970s his work drew on a wide range of earlier sources for its imagery, including Ledoux, Boullée, Ingres, Poussin and Classical Greece and Rome, integrating representational forms and images into abstract, painterly collages with an increasingly Byzantine complexity in the multiple layering of imagery so that the architecture only gives the illusion of making direct historical references. His buildings also became increasingly colourful mosaics that reflected metaphorical associations with nature. The Plocek House (1977), Warren, NJ, recalls an Italian palazzo but with abstracted columns and a missing keystone that reappears as the study pavilion in the garden. The Fargo-Moorhead Cultural Center (19778; see fig.) bridging the river between Fargo, ND, and Moorhead, MN, drew on Ledoux's project for a sluice-house over the River Loue with its semicircular arch, symbolic, slipped keystone and image of sluice. Other well-known buildings include the Portland Public Services Building (197882; see United states of america, fig. 11), Portland, OR, whose façade echoes the classical division of base, middle and top, with a portico as a central motif; the Humana Corporation headquarters (1983), Louisville, KY, a 27-storey steel-framed office building clad in coloured granite that has a gigantic columned and pedimented 'loggia' to the street frontage; and the addition to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, designed in 1985 but revised in 1988 to a more abstract scheme in response to Marcel Breuer's original building. His Disney hotels in Floridathe Swan (19889) and Dolphin (198890) at Lake Buena Vistaprovided a rich canvas for a thematic approach, including giant sculptures and murals of waves and tropical vegetation. The pictorial character of Graves's architecture is consistent with his approach to drawing. He rejected the abstract, minimal geometry of Modernism, believing it led to a sense of alienation from architecture, in favour of figurative elements thought to be derived from classical analogies of man and nature. His architecture also takes the form of a literary art in its attempt to create a new vocabulary of semiological, syntactic analogies that appeal to the collective memory. By re-establishing architecture as a mythic and symbolic representation of culture, he sought to increase its communication with the culture at large. His buildings represent these arguments in a series of provocative, sometimes puzzling and often amusing metaphors that are, above all, decorative. Graves's work, which was widely exhibited in the USA and Europe and won many awards, also included interior, industrial and furniture design (see United states of america, fig. 38); he designed showrooms for Sunar Furniture throughout the USA and also worked for Steuben Glass, Alessi and Memphis Furniture, both in Milan, and for Baldinger Architectural Lighting. (Grove Art Online accessed 2006-07-28)
Work Style Period:
20th century
work_styleperiod
20th century
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
Contemporary
work_styleperiod
Contemporary
Work Style Period
false
Work Style Period:
Postmodern
work_styleperiod
Postmodern
Work Style Period
false
Work Subject:
administration buildings
subject
administration buildings
Work Subject
false
Work Worktype:
administration buildings
work_type
administration buildings
Work Worktype
false
Work Worktype:
architecture (object genre)
work_type
architecture (object genre)
Work Worktype
false
Work Category (VRC classification):
architecture
work_category__ucbaahvrc_classification_
architecture
Work Category (VRC classification)
false
Work Location (Geographic) name:
Portland, Oregon
Image Rights (display):
© Ronald Wiedenhoeft. Licensed for educational use via Scholars Resource: Saskia, Ltd.
Image Rights license agreement:
SASKIA, LTD.: WHO CAN USE THIS SOFTWARE: (a) Licensee, including faculty, staff and currently enrolled students may use the Licensed Software to display and or print the corresponding graphic images without limitation for teaching and research purposes at the defined Sites, or at remote locations having electronic access to your Site(s). (b) This license include permission to use the Licensed Software on a multi-user network at the defined Site, and to permit remote access to a computer/server located at your Site. Simultaneous display in multiple locations at or connected to the Site is also permitted. (c) Licensee agrees to employ reasonable security measures designed to limit access to your faculty, staff and currently enrolled students. PROHIBITED USES AND LIMITATIONS: (a) Saskia hereby reserves all rights not expressly granted herein. (b) the License Software may not be used for preparaiton of any publication, scholarly or otherwise; or for any purpose other than teaching or research. Publication of an image from the Licensed Software requires a separate license from Saskia. (c) Licensee agrees not to resell, lease, transfer, sub-license or otherwise distribute a copy of the Licensed Software, or any image taken from the Licensed Software, in whole or in part. (d) Licensee also agrees not to modify, corrupt or alter any digital image graphic content or "digital watermark" or the like in the software provided by Saskia under this Agreement. (e) Licensee agrees not to remove, alter, cover or distort Saskia's copyright notice, trademark, or other proprietary rights notice placed by Saskia in the Licensed Software itself, or in the associated packaging, media or documentation. (f) And Licensee agrees to notify users of the Licensed Software, in writing or by sign-on screen display, of their obligations under this Agreement and solicit their cooperation and compliance with such obligations.
Work Rights (display):
© Michael Graves
Terms of Agreement and Conditions of Use:
YOU AGREE: Luna Imaging's Insight Software and the digital image collection associated with it (the Software) are being provided by the University of Colorado under the following license. By obtaining, using, and/or copying this work, you (the Licensee) agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with the following terms and conditions. 1. The Software contains the University of Colorado's Department of Art and Art History's implementation of a digital image collection; 2. Any images obtained through use of the Software will be used only for non-profit, educational purposes; 3. The use of images obtained through the software will only be used while the Licensee is either: a) an employee of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver, or b) an enrolled student at the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver, or the Community College of Denver; 4. When the Licensee is no longer an employee or student of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or Community College of Denver, either by an action of the University of Colorado, Metropolitan State College of Denver or the Community College of Denver or due to actions of the Licensee, the licensee will cease to use any images exported from the Department of Art and Art History's digital image collection; 5. The Licensee agrees to indemnify the University for claims and liability arising out of the use of the Software or for any violations of this license; 6. THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SUPPLIES THE SOFTWARE WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
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Holding Institution:
University of Colorado at Boulder
Collection:
Art and Art History Visual Resources Center
Collection info and contact:
For information about this collection, see