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Biography OF RICHARD MEIER

Richard Meier (born October 12, 1934,


Newark , New Jersey) is an American abstract
artist and architect, whose geometric designs
make prominent use of the color white.
Meier was born to a Jewish family, the
oldest of three sons of Jerome Meier, wholesale
wine and liquor salesman, and Carolyn
Kaltenbacher in Newark, New Jersey. He grew
up in nearby Maplewood, where he attended
Columbia High School. He earned a Bachelor of
Architecture degree from Cornell University in
1957.
After graduation, Meier traveled to Israel, Greece, Germany, France,
Denmark, Finland, and Italy, among other places, to network with
architects.
Meier is also the second cousin of Peter Eisenman, an architect,
theorist.
In New York City, Meier worked for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill
briefly in 1959, and then for Marcel Breuer for three years, prior to
starting his own practice in 1963. In 1972, he was identified as one of The
New York Five, a group of modernist architects: Meier, Peter Eisenman,
Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey, and John Hejduk. Early in his career,
Meier worked with artists such as painter Frank Stella and favored
structures that were white and geometric.
Work
of
Richard Meier
Meier first gained significant
recognition for his designs of
various residences in addition to
The Atheneum in New Harmony,
Indiana (1979) and the High
Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia
(1983).
Though Meier was an acclaimed
architect for many years, his design
of the Getty Center, a massive
museum complex in Los Angeles,
California, which opened in 1997.
Some of his other notable commissions include museums such as
the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art in Spain (1995) and the
Paley Center for Media in Beverly Hills, California (1996); city halls in
The Hague, The Netherlands (1995) and San Jose City Hall (2007);
commercial buildings including the reconstruction of City Tower in
Prague, Czech Republic (2008); and residential buildings such as 173
and 176 Perry Street in the West Village of Manhattan (2002) and
Meier on Rothschild in Tel Aviv, Israel (2015).
Barcelona
museum of
contempor
ary art
Richard
Meier’s Rome
church is one
event
originally
planned to
mark the
celebrations
of the Jubilee
of AD 2000.
Museum of
television
and radio
Beverly
hills
California
High
museum
of art in
Atlanta
major
works by
meier
include
the high
museum
in Atlanta.
Much of Meier's work builds on the work of architects of the early
to mid-20th century, especially that of Le Corbusier and, in particular,
Le Corbusier's early phase. Meier has built more using Corbusier's
ideas than anyone, including Le Corbusier himself. Meier expanded
many ideas evident in Le Corbusier's work, particularly the Villa Savoye
and the Swiss Pavilion.
His work also reflects the influences of other designers such as
Mies Van der Rohe and, in some instances, Frank Lloyd Wright and
Luis Barragán (without the color). White has been used in many
architectural landmark buildings throughout history, including
cathedrals and the white-washed villages of the Mediterranean region,
in Spain, southern Italy and Greece.
In 1984, Meier was awarded the
Pritzker Prize. The jury citation declared
that Meier has "created structures which
are personal, vigorous, original. In 2008,
he won the gold medal in architecture
from the Academy of Arts and Letters and
his work Jesolo Lido Village was awarded
the Dedalo Minosse International Prize for
commissioning a building. Meier is a
Senior Fellow of the Design Futures
Council. He was awarded the AIA Gold
Medal in 1997. In 2013 Richard Meier was
awarded the A+ Lifetime Achievement
Award In 2010, Cornell established a new
professorship named for Meier.
In 2014, Meier opened a 15,000-
square-foot exhibition space museum at
Mana Contemporary in Jersey City. The
space gathers much of his life’s work
under one roof, and replaces a much
smaller version that opened in 2007 in
Long Island City, Queens, and that until
2013 was open only by appointment to
students and tour groups. The new venue
provides room to show his own
sculptures, architectural drawings and
collages for the first time, and is planned
to include a research library.
Today, Richard Meier & Partners Architects has offices
in New York and Los Angeles with current projects
ranging from China and Tel Aviv to Paris and Hamburg.

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