Adorned with plastic handles, electric blue spheres, and chimney-like finials on the lids, this tea and coffee service brings to tea drinking the audacious forms and vibrant colors of postmodernist design of the 1980s. The architect Michael Graves designed this tea and coffee service as part of an initiative by the Italian company Alessi to promote the relationship between architecture and industrial design. Indeed, the block-like forms of this service loosely suggest the shapes of the Graves's architectural works such as the Public Service Building of Portland (1982).

Adapted from

Kevin Tucker, DMA unpublished material, 2006.

• Dezeen
  Read about the Portland Municipal Services Building designed by Michael Graves.

• ArchDaily
  See architectural drawings of the Portland Municipal Services Building, and read about its controversy.