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 respon