An elite architect thrives on a common touch

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Michael Graves has designed everything from the scaffolding on the Washington Monument to the Walt Disney World Dolphin Hotel. But, in the non-architectural world, he's probably best known as the man who democratized design.

He's created scores of products for homes -- ordinary homes, not manses -- for manufacturers such as Alessi, Steuben, Dansk, and Disney, and retailers such as Target. Teakettles, lint rollers, salad bowls, clocks, toasters, telephones, faucets, water pitchers, board games -- they've all rolled out of his Princeton-based design group.

His work is most visible at Target, with whom he's worked since 1999. He has addressed design flaws in commonplace items that have exasperated consumers, leaving you to wonder why no one bothered to fix them before. His clothes hangers, for example, have small rubber pads where shoulders hang to prevent shirts from slipping off. Hello?

"He believes that good design should be affordable and available to the masses," said Steve Birke, Target's vice president for home decor. "There are so many items that he looks at and says, "Wow, this could be designed so much better."

Graves, who acknowledges that the world of architecture tends to be "elitist," thinks of his work as "humanistic." Whether that's too pompous or not, I don't know."

When he signed with Target, it wasn't pomposity his critics worried about. "The press, at the time, wrote, `This is going to kill Michael Graves. He's done himself in,' " he said. "They said, `You don't work for both' " the middle and upper classes. But it didn't stop him.

He said he'll never forget the first letter he received from a customer, a man who described himself as a curmudgeon. He had purchased Graves's now-famous teakettle with a whistling bird on the spout. "He wrote, "I'm always grumpy, but when I put water in the teakettle and the bird whistles, I have to smile. Damn you!" Graves recalled, laughing.