My Next One

Sometimes you just gotta say what's on your mind.

Architect Michael Graves should know and he was the reason I was at First Baptist Church tonight, sitting on a cushioned pew and wondering where the kneeling bench was.

You can make the girl a heathen, but the Catholic doctrine stays deeply ingrained. I can say that because I spent the first ten minutes waiting for the talk to begin noticing how un-ornamented Baptist churches are.

Once Michael Graves came out in his wheelchair, all conversation ceased.

Helene Dreilling, President of the Virginia Center for Architecture, joined him on the altar/stage. I'm sure I wasn't the only one pleased when her questions took a more personal slant rather than just topics for the roomful of architects (whom I assumed where all the nice-looking men in dark suits and top coats).

Michael began by reminiscing about his parents' canasta nights ("somewhere between bingo and bridge") where he was inevitably asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. When his response of "an artist!" got back to his conservative mother, she gently guided him in the more socially acceptable direction of a profession.

The eight-year old was okay with that as long as he could still draw. She offered him engineering or architecture and the rest is history.

He told of going to the University of Cincinnati, where he alternated classes and working to pay for an art education that left him clueless about Palladio. His graduate school education got a huge laugh when he said, "Just to be sure I never knew who Palladio was, I then went to Harvard."

Of the years at the American Academy of Rome he said, "The experience changed my life."

He glossed over teaching at Princeton and starting his own practice in 1964, admitting, "Everything I did came naturally." Clearly a lot came naturally.

But it was a life-changing illness in the early aughts that got him working on matters of health care. Talking about the chairs hospitals use to get patients from their rooms to treatment, he called them, "One of the most uncomfortable chairs in all of Christendom. Especially when you have to wait two hours in it."

And he would know.

He was full of great anecdotes, like the one about a Japanese architect who'd had it with Graves at a presentation about his work. The architect up-ended the table, depositing its entire contents onto Graves' lap, just to make himself perfectly clear.

His passion for cities was clear when he talked about places where people live, work, recreate and go to the theater as "organisms that work."

"Glass box buildings have no meaning for me," he said emphatically. "They're set back so far they take away the vibrancy of the sidewalks. I feel strongly about the role of buildings in the context of where they are."

Um, shouldn't all architects or is that just too 20th century?

His comments about Richmond, or the little he'd seen of it today, were spot on, at least as far as I'm concerned. "Richmond seems very livable to me. From what I've seen, it seems like you could take a walk after a coffee here."

The man may have been in a wheelchair, but his humor and intelligence shone through in practically everything he said.

There was no way not to talk about his association with Target and its 1700 stores and how he'd been able to do what the artists of the Bauhaus hadn't been - to bring good design to the masses. We heard that his next project is with J.C. Penney, which he characterized as, "A little creepy in there," before the revamping currently going on. He promised that the 300 items which will be sold in the Michael Graves department, "Will do more than put a smile on your face."

Near the end, Helene told him that at recent Virginia Center for Architecture board meeting, one of the board members had asked her if Michael would sign her toaster. "So be warned that she may come find you to ask," Helene said.

"She already did," he deadpanned, making me think I should have brought my teakettle for him to initial.

Talking about his massive resort project in Shanghai, he was just as low key. "The client was a man of no taste." No taste, but enough grace at least to name one of the hotels after Michael ("That'll eventually be changed," he predicted with a smile).

The unexpected benefit of that was a letter he received from a newly pregnant couple who'd been trying unsuccessfully for years to conceive. "We stayed at the Hotel Michael and now we're expecting," they wrote.

"That's what it's about," Michael said, laughing.

He was just as amusing talking about the project to cover the Washington monument in scaffolding during restoration. When Hillary read that the scaffolding would be lit all night, she called up Michael, worried that Bill's bedroom faced the monument and if it was lit at night, it might shine unpleasantly.

Michael assured Hillary that it wouldn't bother the President. "Anyway, he knows how to find dark places," he joked to us.

Toward the end of the talk, he was just as lively, but talking about bigger things. "All my work is out there. It's public for everyone to see," he said. "We don't have a chance to do B+ work."

When asked to compare Rome, a city he still loves, with an American city, he named several worthy contenders: San Francisco, New Orleans, Boston and South Beach, speaking longest and most enthusiastically about the latter. "South Beach is so distinctively different. It's like going to a village in Tuscany. It's a downtown done on a delicate scale."

On the subject of his long experiences in hospitals and finding a mission in making them more disabled-friendly, he was clear. "I'm gonna change it one hospital at a time." If you'd heard him say it, you'd know he will.

And he has already, working with Stryker and other companies to create equipment, furniture and living quarters that put everything within reach for the disabled. "I will fight for all of us," he promised.

When asked his favorite project, his answer was sunny. "My next one!"

During the more than an hour he talked, I continued to marvel that this world-famous architect was sitting in a Baptist church in Richmond, talking to a roomful of admirers for free. Better living thanks to corporate sponsorship. Sure, I'll give them a round of applause for that.

After the talk, Michael and probably a lot of the people in the room, were going over two blocks to the Virginia Center for Architecture for a dinner with Graves. At $100 a seat, it was well beyond my budget, but I was just as thrilled to have listened to this talented man who'd only wanted to draw for a living since he was a kid. A man who talked about an upcoming architectural award winner and his winning design by stating, "It's bullshit."

A man who also laughed and said, "There are things you don't need to say," and proceeded to tell us more. The city-loving man who'd designed the teakettle that sits on my stove.

"At my age, there aren't that many days left and you've just got to say things," he said in closing. Hell, at my age, there are plenty of days left and I've just got to say things.

In this case, thank you to Michael Graves for gracing Richmond with your presence.

I like your attitude.