A Design for Living

"In the mid-1990s," he tells the assembled designers and educators, "products based on design didn't exist for everyday people with everyday budgets." Johnson had long admired Graves's Alessi teakettle, the world's best-selling designer teapot at the time. But its $150 price tag limited sales to the well-heeled. When the two finally met, Johnson suggested that Graves try designing for a broader audience. He jumped at the chance. His biggest frustration, Graves told Johnson, was that his students at Princeton couldn't afford to buy his products. "I would love to democratize design," he said.

While good design at low prices is now fairly ubiquitous, the concept was radical in the mid-1990s. "People thought he was crazy," says Johnson. "A lot of designers thought he was selling out for a quick buck, that he would reduce design quality and make design trivial. But because of how well his products were executed, it did the opposite."

Not only did Graves prove that it was possible to deliver great design at affordable prices with the homeliest of objects, but also that design could be a differentiator in the marketplace. Johnson drives the connection home for his audience: "What I learned from Michael Graves is that by creating a great teakettle, we could create an identity for Target that set it apart in its industry."

If the collaboration with Graves changed Target's standing in the retail industry, it also expanded the public understanding of the range of things that architects can do. "With his work for Target, Michael reached out into an area where angels fear to tread -- or architects dream of being transgressed," says Robert A.M. Stern, dean of the Yale School of Architecture. Stern says the move prompted plenty of sniping in the more pompous architectural circles. "You stick your neck out, and somebody tries to chop it off," he says. "But Michael is very good at these smiley toaster things. It was a brilliant bus-iness move, and he did a great job."

For Graves, designing everything from a toilet brush to an office tower is not dilettantism. It's an outgrowth of a philosophy that doesn't discriminate between what's homely and domestic and what's grand and public. "In the last couple of years, we have taken it upon ourselves to say, we would like to do furniture, we would like to do wall coverings, we would like to do fabrics and faucets and everything," says Graves. "And we have. All those things are part of our domestic view of the world."

"You Have To Let Go"

Despite Graves's medical problems, sources at Target say his firm never missed a beat during the year. "To be honest, it's actually gotten a little better," says Steve Birke, a VP and general merchandise manager at Target. "Because he hasn't been traveling overseas as much on his architectural commissions, Michael's staff has had more face time with him."

To make Graves's life in rehab more comfortable, Birke personally sent him a DVD player, and the company donated a set of Graves-designed games for the facility's recreation areas. To accommodate the designer's restricted mobility when he returned to work, Target helped select videoconferencing equipment for the firm's conference room, enabling Graves and his staff to meet with their Minneapolis clients without having to travel.

The architecture side of the business has been a little more difficult to handle. If clients are hiring a firm for a multimillion-dollar project, they often want to see the man behind the brand. With projects ranging from a retail and restaurant building on the Bund in Shanghai to that courthouse in Nashville, Graves used to be on planes more than 50% of the time. Tweaking drawings takes you only so far. "Most clients have been understanding, but the ones that are difficult are where they expect personal services and for him to go to meetings," says Nichols. "The name on the door is the one they want to see."

Graves himself acknowledges that some in the industry have used his disability to their own advantage. His voice trembles slightly as he describes an encouraging note from architect David Child. "It was the sweetest letter," he says. "Other people might say, 'Michael can't design buildings anymore. He's always in the hospital; he's not in the office. So you don't have to consider him.' That's how cutthroat it is."

Still, the architecture practice seems to be thriving, with a variety of new commissions. Graves is both delighted and chagrined. "I'll tell you what's got me worried: when these guys go out to an interview and I'm not there -- and they get the job!" he chuckles.

But for such a private man, the personal limitations of his disability may be the hardest thing to bear. He has had to install an elevator and wheelchair-accessible shower in the exquisite house he designed two blocks from his office, and adapt to the constant presence of a live-in caregiver. He confessed to The New York Times that he now wishes that he had a life partner.