Meier, Richard 1934-

Richard Meier
1934-

Architect

Education and Training

A native of Newark, New Jersey, Meier received his architectural training at Cornell University. He worked in the office of Marcel Breuer from 1960 to 1963 and established his own practice in 1963. He received the Pritzker Prize in 1984 and a Royal Gold Medal in 1988.

Getty Center

The 1980s set the stage for how Meier would spend the next decade. Then based in New York City, the architect learned in 1984 that he was chosen to design the J. Paul Getty Center in Los Angeles, California. Built on a 710-acre hilltop, the $1 billion Getty Center opened on 16 December 1997. The collection of six separate units linked by terraces and plazas has nearly one million square feet of space. The campus combines both modern and classic forms. Meier said of his creation: "In my mind I keep returning to the Romans—to Hadrian's Villa, to Caprarola for their sequence of spaces, their thick-walled presence, their sense of order, the way in which building and landscape belong to each other."

Other Projects

Although the Getty Center defined Meier's work in the 1990s, it certainly was not his only project. Meier's Stadthaus civic center in Ulm, Germany, was dedicated on 12 November 1993. The three-story complex was clad in Rosa Dante granite and white stucco. In addition to building a complex of exhibition spaces, an assembly hall, café, and tourist information center, Meier also redesigned its home, the Münsterplatz. Most of the historic city of Ulm was destroyed during World War II, and the reconstruction paid little attention to architectural quality. Meier's improvements, which included a curved wall that leads people into the square, helped redefine the center plaza of Ulm as a place to congregate. He successfully integrated his modern, geometric designs with the historic setting. Other significant projects of Meier's included the Canal Plus headquarters, Paris, France (1988-1991); City Hall and Library, The Hague, The Netherlands (1990-1995); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, Spain (1988-1995).

Sources:

Charles Gandee, "Modern Man," Vogue, 187 (December 1997): 284-288, 346.

Robert Hughes, "Bravo! Bravo!" Time, 150 (3 November 1997): 98-105.

Philip Jodidio, New Forms: Architecture in the 1990s (Köln & New York: Taschen, 1997), pp. 7, 113, 116, 119, 230.