Richard Meier Quotes
-
For me [ Giovanni Lorenzo ] Bernini, [Francesco ] Borromini, and [Donato] Bramante have been as significant as Alvar Aalto, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, and Louis Kahn. I still marvel at their works, which have a quality and a timelessness that I seek to have in our projects.
-
To be an architect has been a life-long dream. Little did I know when asked at the age of 14 'what do you want to do when you grow up?' I said I wanted to be an architect. After 50 years I am still learning all what that means. Working together with so many people has been enormously gratifying. Being an architect means being a member of a fantastic team.
-
An important work of architecture will create polemics.
-
Ultimately it's the public nature of those projects that I most enjoy. Museums are more than just places to view art, they're also civic and social centers.
-
Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.
-
One of the real challenges, since we're working in so many places - Mexico, Japan, Brazil - is understanding variations, both in terms of culture and context.
-
You can't escape the influence of architectural history.
-
The world has changed a great deal from when I began 50 years ago. I was very fortunate. There were a lot of opportunities that perhaps don't exist today.
-
We learn a lot, and each museum ends up having its own distinctive character and personality.
-
I was in Taiwan recently and was completely amazed by the density of population. It makes New York look like no one is out on the streets.
-
Winning the competition for Frankfurt's Museum of Applied Art in '79 opened the door to a number of projects in Europe, especially as we were invited to join many design competitions.
-
We think about project's public nature and how that can be enhanced, how the spaces we create can enliven the experience of being there.
-
If I had my druthers, I would do a lot more.
-
Each museum is different - the collection is different, the context is different, the relationship between the art and architecture is different.
-
Rome has not seen a modern building in more than half a century. It is a city frozen in time.
-
When I think of a place of worship, I think of a place where one can sit and be reminded of all the things that are important outside our individual lives. To express spirituality, the architect has to think of the original material of architecture, space and light.
-
We look at each one [project] and consider the context - what it is and what it can be - beyond the strictly functional concerns.
-
The work needs to have a certain longevity. It lasts longer than we do.
-
It's important to understand differences in scale and environment.