Interview conducted by Bernard Friedman
For this iteration of our recurring series Screen/Print, we’re featuring an interview with the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier from The American Idea of Home. Meier, born in 1934, is known primarily for his major institutional commissions, from the Getty in Los Angeles to the High Museum in Atlanta. But, as Friedman notes in the introduction to the book, the architect spent a sizable amount of his career designing residential architecture—both at its nascence and today. In fact, his first building was a home designed for his own parents. The Smith House in Darien Connecticut, built five years later, launched him into the spotlight.
“Architecture is a tradition, a long continuum,” says Meier. “Whether we break with tradition or enhance it, we are still connected to that past." In the following interview, Meier discusses his influences, chiefly Frank Lloyd Wright—who is likewise cited by almost all of the designers in The American Idea of Home. At the same time, Meier expresses fervent support for contemporary architecture, which he believes escape the confines of national identity. “I don’t think there is an American architecture,” he states outright. Ultimately, when it comes to the design of a home, Meier believes it must be oriented around the “human scale”.
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Do you think there is an American architecture today?
I don’t think there’s an American architecture, no. I think that the work you see in the United States is like the work you see in Tokyo or Shanghai or any other major city in which big architecture firms are practicing. In Berlin and Frankfurt, there are as many buildings by US firms as there are in major cities in America, and maybe even more so in places like Beijing. I don’t think there is an American architecture. American architecture has been exported to influence the rest of the world.
How has globalization changed architecture?
The speed of communication is such today that when a young architect in Argentina completes a work, it’s not only seen reproduced in publications in Argentina, but also in publications in America, Europe, and elsewhere. What’s interesting is that the quality of the workmanship and the materials used might be indigenous to Argentina, but they’re not foreign. The stonework looks like one would use stone in France or Minnesota. What may be lost is a recognition of place through the architecture.
Nevertheless, I think that certain parts of the world still maintain a regional architecture. If one thinks of residential work in Switzerland, for example, especially in the mountains, all the houses have pitched roofs, because the snow load would be too heavy for a flat roof. However, in other parts of Switzerland, you will see flat-roofed houses. So I think the international influences on the architecture depend a great deal on the particularities of a place.
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