Top 25 Quotes & Sayings by Richard Meier

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American architect Richard Meier.

Last updated on April 15, 2025.

Richard Meier is an American abstract artist and architect, whose geometric designs make prominent use of the color white. A winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1984, Meier has designed several iconic buildings including the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art, the Getty Center in Los Angeles, and San Jose City Hall. In 2018, all of Meier's employees accused him of sexual assault, which led to his resignation in 2021.

American - Architect | Born: October 12, 1934

Source: Wikipedia

An important work of architecture will create polemics.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

Rome has not seen a modern building in more than half a century. It is a city frozen in time.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

It's important to understand differences in scale and environment.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

Each museum is different - the collection is different, the context is different, the relationship between the art and architecture is different.

Richard Meier

Whiteness allows the architectural ideas to be understood most clearly - the difference between opacity and transparency, solid and void, structure and surface. These things are more perceptible in a white environment. They have a greater clarity.

Richard Meier

Architecture which enters into a symbiosis with light does not merely create form in light, by day and at night, but allow light to become form.

Richard Meier

The work needs to have a certain longevity. It lasts longer than we do.

Richard Meier

You can't escape the influence of architectural history.

Richard Meier

When I am asked what I believe in, I say that I believe in architecture. Architecture is the mother of the arts. I like to believe that architecture connects the present with the past and the tangible with the intangible.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

I think white is the most wonderful color of all, because within it one can find every color of the rainbow.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

We look at each one [project] and consider the context - what it is and what it can be - beyond the strictly functional concerns.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

The responsibility of an architect is to create a sense of order, a sense of place, a sense of relationship.

Richard Meier

We are all affected by Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto, and Mies van der Rohe. But no less than Bramante, Borromini, and Bernini. Architecture is a tradition, a long continuum. Whether we break with tradition or enhance it, we are still connected to that past. We evolve.

Richard Meier

If I had my druthers, I would do a lot more.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

We learn a lot, and each museum ends up having its own distinctive character and personality.

Richard Meier

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.

Richard Meier

Top 25 Quotes & Sayings by Richard Meier

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