San Juan Capistrano Library

One of the most beloved buildings of Michael Graves’s early career, the library expresses the historic context of its picturesque surroundings and embodies essential ideas about the library as a building type. Graves received the commission through a competition that specified that the design needed to adhere to the prevailing Spanish Mission style of the context. Rather than simply imitate the formal attributes of the style, Michael looked to its roots in the Renaissance and its transformations in response to the climate of California and elsewhere in the New World.