Michael Graves was one of the most inspirational and influential American architects of the 1980s. Trained at Cincinnati and Harvard, he was a Rome Scholar at the American Academy during the years 1960 - 1962. He has been in private practice since 1964, and from 1962 taught at Princeton where he became Professor of Architecture in 1972. A prodigious lecturer and exhibitor, and a multi-facetted designer, he has won many competitions. He was one of the "Five" of Peter Eisenman's 1972 book "Five Architects" who became known as "The New York Five".
In his architecture Graves "adopts a classical mode of thought which can represent in physical form the symbolic and mythical aspirations of our culture".
For his talk he discusses the essential character of the boundary between two places: the tangible or symbolic boundary we establish, through which we then create a passage; and the intermediate space, the threshold. He shows his own work as well as buildings from earliest times to illustrate his theme.
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