We are honored to announce that Michael Graves has been selected to receive, posthumously, the 2015 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement.
The Lifetime Achivement award is "Given in recognition of a distinguished individual who has made a profound and long-term contribution to the contemporary practice of design."
Michael Graves was a renowned architect and industrial designer, credited with broadening the role of architects and raising public interest in good design as essential to the quality of everyday life. He established Michael Graves Architecture & Design in 1964, and served as principal until his death in 2015. Widely recognized for designing consumer products for Alessi, Target, and Kimberly-Clark, he later focused on accessibility and healthcare, designing hospitals, housing for disabled veterans, and wheelchairs and hospital furniture for Stryker Medical. Graves served as the Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture at Princeton University, where he taught for thirty-nine years. His numerous honors include the 2012 Richard H. Driehaus Prize, the 2010 AIA/ACSA Topaz Medallion, the 2001 AIA Gold Medal, a 1999 National Medal of Arts, and inclusion on a list of the top twenty-five most influential people in healthcare design by the Center for Health Design in 2010.
Visit the Cooper Hewitt National Design Award website for more images.
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, is the only museum in the nation devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. As noted on the Cooper Hewitt National Design Awards website, the awards honor lasting achievement in American design, and are bestowed in recognition of excellence, innovation, and enhancement of the quality of life. First launched at the White House in 2000 as an official project of the White House Millennium Council, the annual Awards program celebrates design as a vital humanistic tool in shaping the world, and seeks to increase national awareness of the impact of design through education initiatives.
Photos courtesy Michael Graves Architecture & Design, Inc.
