Michael Graves named 2012 Driehaus Prize laureate

American architect Michael Graves has been named the recipient of the 2012 Richard H. Driehaus Prize at the University of Notre Dame. Winner of the university's 2012 Henry Hope Reed Award is writer and landscape preservationist Elizabeth Barlow Rogers.

Michael Graves is Founding Principal of the firm Michael Graves & Associates (MGA) and the Robert Schirmer Professor of Architecture, Emeritus at Princeton University, where he taught for 39 years.

Members of the Driehaus Prize jury commended his commitment to the traditional city—in its human scale, complexity, and vitality—as emblematic of a time-tested sustainability.

“Michael Graves has enhanced not just the architecture profession with his talent and scholarship, but everyday life itself through his inspiring attention to beautiful and accessible design,” says Michael Lykoudis, Driehaus Prize Jury Chair and Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture. “The quality and scope of his work have enhanced how people work, live, and interact in public and private realms, making a profound impact on American life.”

Following is a small selection of some of Michael Graves' most iconic works.

Established in 2003 through the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture, the Richard H. Driehaus Prize honors lifetime contributions to traditional, classical, and sustainable architecture and urbanism in the modern world. The Driehaus Prize represents the most significant recognition for classicism in the contemporary built environment. 

Recipients are selected by a jury comprised of Adele Chatfield-Taylor (President of the American Academy in Rome), Robert Davis (Developer and Founder of Seaside, Florida), Paul Goldberger (Architecture Critic for The New Yorker), Léon Krier (Inaugural Driehaus Prize Laureate), Witold Rybczynski (Meyerson Professor of Urbanism at the University of Pennsylvania and Architecture Critic for Slate), Richard H. Driehaus (Founder and Chairman of Driehaus Capital Management) and Michael Lykoudis (Francis and Kathleen Rooney Dean of the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture).