Detlef Mertins: Mies said that he wasn't working on architecture but on architecture as a language. Did you see yourself working on a language? If so, how?
Bruce Graham: Yes. Around the Chicago area and the Middle West there was a vocabulary that I felt very strongly. But when you build in other cities; like Nashville, Tennessee, or Cincinnati, Ohio, you don't just plunk in a Chicago building. You try to see what the city's character is and express it. It was the same with the buildings I did in London and Barcelona. Still, the structure was important. Let me tell you about Bishopsgate in the Broadgate Development in London. The structural steel there was treated with a paint that lasts forever and fireproofs the steel. It was invented by Sears Roebuck but hasn't been allowed in the United States, until very recently when it was used in Texas. We lobbied to use it in Chicago and other places because it makes such a big difference. The character of the steel is much clearer.
DM: Your practice was national and international in scope, but you were very attuned to the specific aspects of the place in which you were working. I wonder if you could speak a little more about that. What did you seek to understand about a place when you came to work in it?
BG: Well, Barcelona is a good example. They had a fantastic mayor, by the way. He understood the city, and the city had a special character with a long tradition. When you do a modern building in a place like that, you still want it to fit in. I think I achieved that with the hotel I designed there. At least the ex-Prime Minister of England thought so. She bought an apartment on the fortieth floor. You have to look at the character of the city. In Hong Kong I would do a different kind of hotel than in Chicago. The same way with any other place.
DM: Were you also interested in how construction varies from one place to another?
BG: That's right. There was no way you could build a structural-steel tower in Egypt. Forget it.
DM: You have a certain fondness for the courtyard house, I believe. Your own house in Chicago was a courtyard house. How is it that, as a modern architect, you were drawn to that vernacular type?
BG: Well, remember, I was raised in Peru, and all the houses in the nice neighborhoods in Peru, and the ancient ones, had courtyards. The beauty of a courtyard in a city is, number one, safety. Number two, it has spaces that you can decorate and separate from the road. There's a sense of privacy that you don't get with a regular house.
DM: Since your work varies in relation to the specific conditions of a local place, how would you describe the continuities from one project to the next?
BG: Certainly the most important thing in architecture is space—
DM: Regardless of where you're building, you want to find a way to create spatial experiences.
BG: That's right.
DM: And regardless of what kind of construction you're using, you want to articulate that, to make a clear structure.
BG: You got it.
DM: Let's talk a little bit about some other building types. For a while you were exploring the potentials of tubular structure for your high-rise buildings. You made a series of projects that are essays on this idea—from the Brunswick Building (Chicago, 1965) to One Shell Plaza (Houston, 1972) and the Sears Tower (Chicago, 1974). Incidentally, that's a wonderful maquette of the Sears Tower that you have. How did you go about working with that type of structure?
BG: Well, the tubular structure was a basic idea for a very tall building. A frame building doesn't have the same capacity and economy that a tubular building does. It's a very simple way to build structures, putting the strength of the building on the exterior with the spans towards the core. In that way, the space in between can be free for various uses, which is particularly important in office buildings. Everybody thinks they were very expensive, but they weren't. The Sears Tower and Hancock Center (Chicago, 1970) were not expensive.
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