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Bruce Graham Interviewed by Detlef Mertins

August 7, 2002
Hobe Sound, Florida

Detlef Mertins: During the forty years that you were at SOM, what would you say were the guiding principles, approaches, or ideas for your architecture?
Bruce Graham: Most important was working in Chicago, which I think is still the best architectural city in the United States. It gave you direction, an overall direction. I don't mean that you had to imitate other architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Louis Sullivan, or even Mies. But there was a great tradition in architecture and a city that was perfectly planned after the big fire. It has a grid and a beach that goes all the way from Indiana to Milwaukee. The grid created a sense of direction for the people. It created neighborhoods with their own parks, their own school systems, and so on. I followed that kind of philosophy.

DM: So you inherited an architectural tradition and a body of work that you saw as a positive influence, something that you had to respond to. And the city itself was important as a guide.
BG: In what other city would the businessmen elect an architect to be assistant chairman of the Centra1 Area Committee? Can you imagine New York doing that? Forget it. Or Los Angeles?

DM: You've mentioned a number of architects: Wright, Sullivan, and Mies. In things you've written, you've highlighted the importance of the expression of structure, which is certainly part of the legacy of those architects. How do you see yourself contributing to that Chicago theme?
BG: Let me describe the difference between my idea of architecture and a lot of other architects. Number one, architecture is not painting or sculpture. Architecture is much more like music, which has an element of lime. Architecture is about space and movement. It's four-dimensional. I learned that very early when I went to Chartres Cathedral. I walked up the hill and found the square and then the church and walked in, and this fantastic space opened up. There was a funeral, and they were playing Mozart's unfinished Requiem. I had to cry. Moving through that space with that music was unbelievable. Space is what architecture is all about. Not only interior but also exterior. And the movement of people. That's true whether you go to Greece, or to Karnak, or to any other place and see any other great architecture of the past. I believe that modern architecture should do the same. In Chicago our advantage was that we had engineers. Structure is still essential to the creation of space, just as it was in Chartres Cathedral.

DM: How do you work with a structure architecturally? How do you work on a structural idea?
BG: Each structure depends on the kind of building you're making. The spaces depend on the intended uses. A church is different from an office building.

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Interview originally published in
SOM Journal 2

Hatje Cantz, Publisher

Bruce J. Graham was born in 1925 in La Cumbre, Colombia. He studied civil engineering for two years at the Case School of Engineering before serving in the Navy during World War II. After the. War, he studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1948. Graham worked for three years in the Chicago architectural firm of Holabird, Root & Burgee. He joined the Chicago office of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in 1951 as chief of design and was elected a partner in 1960. Graham became a specialist in high-rise corporate buildings, designing skyscrapers and office complexes in Chicago and around the world. Two of Chicago's landmarks—the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Center—were designed by Graham in partnership with structural engineer Fazlur Khan. Graham retired from SOM in 1989 and now lives with his wife, Jane, in Hobe Sound, Florida. He is a member of the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Architects and an Honorary member of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He continues to serve as a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania.

Detlef Mertins is Associate Professor at the University of Toronto. He has written extensively on the history of modernism in the 20th century, including essays in the catalogues for Mies in Berlin (Museum of Modern Art) and Mies in America (Canadian Center for Architecture and Whitney Museum of American Art). He also has been professional advisor for several design competitions in Canada, including the Downsview Park Competition (Toronto, 1999-2000). His book Mies: In and Against the World is forthcoming with Phaidon Press.