Architect
Richard Meier was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1934.
He graduated from Cornell University in 1957 then worked
with a series of architects, including Skidmore, Owings,
and Merrill and Marcel Breuer. He established his own
practice in 1963.
Meier has maintained a specific and unalterable attitude
toward the design of buildings from the moment he first
entered architecture. Although his later projects show
a definite refinement from his earlier projects, he
clearly authored both based on the same design concepts.
With admirable consistency and dedication, he has ignored
the fashion trends of modern architecture and maintained
his own design philosophy.
Meier has created a series of striking, but related
designs. He usually designs white Neo-Corbusian forms
with enameled panels and glass. These structure usually
play with the linear relationships of ramps and handrails.
Although all have a similar look, Meier manages to
generate endless variations on his singular theme.
A main figure in the "New York Five", which
gained public attention in 1975, Meier creates designs
with a unified theme based on neo-modern beliefs in purist
architecture. Meier's white sculptural pieces have created
a new vocabulary of design for the 1980s. |
