Richard Meyer is one of the most influential architects in America and widely imitated in the world. His name has become a kind of brand. Even now, when the architect is 83 years old, any project related to Meyer instantly receives public interest.
He began his career in the early 1960s with the design of private residences, the elegant Art Nouveau and white facades of which became iconic for modern architecture. Known as a designer of large objects around the world, Meyer established his own international style, based on the purity of simple geometric lines and the harmony of the external form with an open, penetrated by light, internal space. Why did the buildings of this architect become a symbol of modernity, and how do they become architects like Meyer?
Project Features
All of his designs are designed in the classic variations of the modernist canons: pure geometry, open space, emphasis on the abundance of light and white. Buildings in an amazing way always organically fit into the surrounding urban or natural landscape. Meyer is an ardent supporter of purism, the architectural trend of the 1920s, the principles of which are based on the rigor and purity of lines. He was once a member of the "New York Five" of young architects who advocated a return to modernist rational architecture. But Richard Meyer in his works came as close as possible to the ideals of purism.
For all architect's projects, the spatial contrast of light or transparent surfaces and solid white planes, as well as geometric clarity and ordering, often complemented by curved ramps and railings, are characteristic. Meyer describes his vision of architecture as follows:
I am expanding and developing what I consider to be the formal basis of the modern movement ... I work with volume and surface, I manipulate forms in the light, changes in scale and perception of movement and stasis.
Some critics consider Meyer's structures to be too austere, reminiscent of past architectural accomplishments, while others welcome their formal pure beauty amid mixed forms of postmodern architecture.
Architectural whiteness of Meyer
White color has been used in many designs throughout the history of architecture, including monuments, temples, palaces and whitewashed village houses in the Mediterranean, Spain, southern Italy, Greece. Richard Meyer speaks about the whiteness of his designs:
White architecture expresses the quality of light and allows us to appreciate the world around us. White is all the colors wherever you look. Whiteness in a sense reflects nature, it refracts light, it makes us more aware of the colors of nature due to the whiteness of buildings.
All projects of the architect are white or close to it. There is Mayer's only black building, it is a 42-story skyscraper in New York along First Avenue. The author of the project himself says with humor about his design:
I did not want to build a black building. Our client came to me and said: “Richard, I really like your work, but I want a black building. Would you make a black building? ” Well, I said, “Why not?” Why not try something new? This is a very smooth black sheer wall, like patent leather, tightly stretched over the frame. This is something very different from the building that we will build next, it will be white.
The phenomenon of continued success
Before graduating from Cornell University, Meyer began his professional career and from 1956 to 1963 he worked successively in three large New York firms. His early experience also included working with renowned international style architect Marcel Breuer. In 1963, six years after graduation, the 29-year-old architect Richard Meyer founded his own company. Two years later, he received critical acclaim for the Smith House (1965-1967) in Darien, Connecticut, the first of his so-called white buildings. The project was clearly based on pristine modernism and the functionalism of the 1920s purist architect Le Corbusier. In the same period, Meyer formed the free association The New York Five.
The archetypal example of his work received even more attention from the Douglas House (1971-1973) located in Harbor Springs, Michigan. Like most of Meyer's buildings, the design includes intersecting planes and contrastively contrasts with the environment due to its clear geometric whiteness.
Large community and residential projects
After the success of impressive private residences, starting in the mid-1970s, Richard Meyer began to receive large orders, including:
- The Athenaeum is the center of New Harmony (1975-1979) in Indiana.
- Museum of Applied Arts (1979-1985) in Frankfurt am Main in Germany.
- Supreme Museum of Art (1980-1983) in Atlanta, Georgia.
- City Hall and Library (1986-1995) in The Hague of the Netherlands.
- Museum of Modern Art (1987-1995) in the Spanish city of Barcelona.
Meyer designed many public buildings. Only among recently completed major projects are the Arp Museum in Germany; Club "OCT" in the Chinese city of Shenzhen; University of California Center for the Arts; Italcementi i.lab in Italy; US Federal Court of San Diego California; The Weill Hall Science Technology Corps at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York State. Recent projects and ongoing work include the bridge of the province of Alessandria in Italy; office building in Rio de Janeiro Brazil; Teachers' Village in Newark, New Jersey; Surf Club at Surfside Florida; Reforma Innovation Tower in Mexico City.
Recent residential building projects:
- The Rothschild Tower in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv;
- two skyscrapers in Tokyo;
- three residential projects in Taiwan;
- hotel complex in South Korea.
- private residences in Europe, Asia and North America.
From 1965 to 2015, Richard Meyer embodied 47 original designs, each of which impresses with the elegant purity of the lines.
Museums
From 1985 to 1997, Meyer focused on the Getty Center in Los Angeles. It consists of six main buildings, which house expositions and educational institutions. The center is built from honey colored travertine, complemented by aluminum panels.
The multi-purpose complex, containing premises from public galleries to private offices, allowed Meyer, more than ever, to embody the contrast between public and private space. And the location of the center on the hills of Los Angeles gave the architect the best opportunity to study the effects of light. The structure has become a popular tourist attraction, and Meyer spoke of it like this:
People like to look at architecture; they want to see not only internal but also external spaces. The Getty Museum in Los Angeles is an example of a place where people from all over the world come to see art objects, as well as to see everything around the museum, whether it's gardens or special places where people can relax and get together.
After this project, Richard Meyer was especially fascinated by the construction of museum complexes, he designed up to a dozen of such objects, including:
- Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia (1980-1983).
- Des Moines Art Center for Contemporary Art (1984) in Des Moines, Iowa.
- Applied Arts (1979-1985) in a German city in Frankfurt am Main.
- Barcelona Museum of Modern Art (1995) in Spain.
- Museum of Contemporary Art Frieder Burda (2004) in Baden-Baden Germany.
- Ara Pacis Museum (2006) in Rome, which serves as a shelter for the ancient Roman Altar of the world.
- Art History Arp Museum Bahnhof Rolandseck (2008) in the German city of Remagen.
Meyer commented on his passion for museum projects:
I like to create museums because every museum is unique. The theme of the expositions is different, therefore the task of the projects is different. But it is always a public space where you can gather for pleasure, as well as for learning.
Awards and titles
Richard Meyer's work is best characterized by public appreciation. In 1984, he was awarded the highest award in the field of architecture - the Pritzker Prize, similar to the Nobel Prize, which is awarded for achievements in science and culture. Meyer at that time turned 53 years old.
In 1997, the architect received the AIA Gold Medal, the highest award from the American Institute of Architects, and in the same year, the Praemium Imperiale from the Government of Japan in recognition of his lifelong recognition of achievements in art. He is a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and the American Institute of Architects (AIA). Meyer was awarded the Medal of Honor from the New York branch of the AIA in 1980 and the Gold Medal from the Los Angeles branch in 1998. Numerous architect awards include 30 AIA Honor national awards and over 50 AIA Design regional awards.
In 1989, Meyer received the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1992, the French government honored him with being the commander of art and literature. In 1995, Meyer was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2011, he received the AIANY Presidential Award and the Sydney Strauss Award from the New York Society of Architects.
He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the American Academy in Rome, and the American Academy of Arts and Literature, from which he received a gold medal for architecture in 2008. He has been awarded honorary degrees from the University of Naples, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the New School for Social Research, the Pratt Institute, the University of Bucharest and the University of North Carolina.
Leaving the company
In March 2018, Meyer announced that he was going on a six-month vacation after five women, four of whom worked for him in the company, accused the architect of sexual harassment. He issued a statement in which he said that he remembered the situation differently from what the prosecutors had stated, but Meyer apologized for insulting anyone with his behavior. In an interview that took place a few months later, he denied the allegations and stated that his leave was due to health reasons. In October of that year, 83-year-old Richard Meyer forever left the company he founded 55 years ago.