Detlef Mertins: Let's go back to the question of urbanism. One of the challenges facing architects today is how to design big buildings within existing cities and achieve new architectural ideas. How did you approach that problem in your time?
Bruce Graham: That's a complicated question because I don't think it applies everywhere. In Chicago, the power of the original plan makes a hell of a difference. The problem with a lot of cities is that they never made such a plan. Then all of a sudden, when they have to begin to put bigger things in, they don't fit. The streets aren't laid out right. New York is a very good example. In my mind, as urban planning, it stinks. It doesn't have any personality, character, public spaces, recreational spaces, nothing, zero. Except for Central Park. That's the only thing they have. There hasn't been anything along the shore until recently. And the relationship between buildings is not at all sympathetic. In Florida, there's also no planning. They had a great chance to build beautiful cities, and they blew it. It's just totally out of control, just driven by money. They don't build public spaces. They don't build avenues. They don't build locations for the arts. They don't even take advantage of the beaches in this state.
I don't know if you know the little church I did on the south side of Chicago. There was a wonderful priest whose supportive attitude transformed an entire neighborhood. He asked me to do a church because part of their building was collapsing. There was a school behind the church where two fabulous nuns taught the kids. This priest was really effective in keeping the kids away from drugs. It was a poor black neighborhood, and about 90 percent of the students went on to college. The school had a perfect record with the kids. Imagine that in any other place. So I said, "Sure, I'll do the church," and I got Chicagoans to contribute the money. He didn't have to put up a nickel.

DM: You've mentioned other examples of that kind of generosity. What are your thoughts about an architect's social responsibilities? A firm like SOM works primarily for specific clients on specific sites—corporate clients, developers, and institutions. Do you think that there are social and political responsibilities that go beyond serving your immediate clients?
BG: Absolutely. I was a member of Central Area Committee in Chicago. If you don't engage with all those people, you won't know anything about your city, and they won't understand anything about architecture.

DM: In Chicago, then, was there a dialogue?
BG: That's the word, yes. As the Central Area Committee, we criticized Northwestern University for not having a campus in the downtown. They had the whole thing up in Evanston, so the students had to drive all the way up to the North Shore to go to university. It was ridiculous, because the central system of Chicago is so perfect. You can take the L and you're downtown. So they changed it and moved it. Northwestern's Medical School shot up in quality after that.

DM: You were instrumental, I believe, in starting the SOM Foundation and the Institute.
BG: I had partners and associate partners, too, who shared in that.

DM: How did the partners get together to create the Foundation, given that they operated so independently on their projects?
BG: The Foundation was national and involved Bunshaft, Hartman, Owings, John Merrill, and others. We had a committee, and it created the Foundation. I don't know whether they still have the committee.

DM: Do you have a favorite among all your buildings?
BG: I don't think about it that way. One of the last buildings that I enjoyed a lot was the hotel in Barcelona. The mayor, as I said, was an absolutely wonderful man who was doing a great job. He took all the parks of Barcelona and turned them over to the people. He gave them the tools to make them right. He got artists from all over the world to contribute sculptures for these little parks. People there became very proud.
When I did the hotel, Frank Gehry, who was a friend of mine, wanted to do something with the passage to the sea, from the hotel all the way to the ocean. I said sure. So Frank tried this and that, and finally he tried a fish. We went to Barcelona for a meeting and Frank was about to open the box with his model in it and the mayor said, "Wait a minute. Why don't you open Bruce's maquette first?" It included the whole project, everything, and had a fish with the same form as Frank's. So Frank said, "Oh!" Then I said, "Frank, of course, we'll use your fish." The fish that's there now was designed by Frank Gehry. Afterwards, he gave me the maquette, which I still own. By the way, I don't think he's an architect. He used to be. He designed beautiful houses along the waterfront in California. Then he took up a sculptural mode.

DM: You don't think that's architecture?
BG: Architecture is space.

DM: But what about the inside of his buildings?
BG: That's what bothers me about them. He doesn't give spaces. Who wants to be inside the stomach of a fish? I still like Frank. We're good friends.

DM: Now that there's been a resurgence of modern design around the world, do you think any of the post-modern criticisms from the 70s and 80s were justified?
BG: There are good architects and bad architects, and fortunately Chicago had a lot of good architects, which helped. But not all cities did. That's sad but true.

DM: How did you react to post-modernism?
BG: When I was in the office, there was no post-modernism. Zero.

DM: Wouldn’t you have to acknowledge though that some of your later work, especially in London, included historical references? Didn't you say before how important it was for a building to fit into its urban context?
BG: In the middle of a city, especially an old city, you want the building to fit in, by means of space and relationships. Obviously as society advances, technology changes and people change, but you can still make a new building fit in. Our building in Barcelona does that pretty well. Remember that Franco hated Barcelona and treated the Catalans terribly. But Barcelona retained its integrity, even through all that. Now it's the city in Spain, without a doubt. I always liked Chicago for the same reason, because there was a certain integrity about the city, regardless of the architect. It's about having a vocabulary and a character. The character of the people in Chicago was totally different than the character of people in New York. Totally different. It was an industrial city. We made things, we grew things. The city related to the landscape and to the farms west and north of Chicago. All of that integrity made for the architecture of Chicago.

DM: You weren't born in Chicago, but when you came there you made it your city. As an outsider, do you feel that you could see things that Chicagoans might not have seen?
BG: I don't know why, but certainly I felt a connection with the city. I came there as a kid with a scholarship to go to university in Dayton. Then later, when the War started, I joined the Navy. I met Americans from all over. The Pacific, the sailors, and training camps ... I went through Chicago in the Navy, going along the Great Lakes, and I always loved the city. I thought it was beautiful. After the War, I was a different person. A lot of my friends had been killed. Then I went to the University of Pennsylvania. After that, I went back to Chicago. I talked to Mies, went to Holabird & Root. .. and the rest is history.