Richard Alan Meier

American architect, winner of the Pritzker Prize, the highest accolade of architecture on 17 April 1984. He is known for his elegant and avant-garde style and for works which are personal, vigorous and original. Considered a classic modernist, he operates in the traditional-function style of Le Corbusier, whom he met in Europe after college.

In 1957 he began with an apprenticeship in an architectural firm. To relax, he did abstract-expressionist painting and collages. For 13 years he taught architectural design and, in 1963, he opened a private practice, gaining national attention by 1967.

In 1984 Meier was commissioned with the design of a lifetime, the 13-year construction of the Getty Museum in Santa Monica, CA. He had just turned 50 when he beat out a roster of 32 international architects to win the outstanding job. The cultural Camelot was over $1 billion in the making and is without doubt a Mecca for Southern California residents as well as tourists from every country in the world. The six buildings occupy nearly a million square feet of space on 24 acres and offer a breathtaking view of the Los Angeles basin from the mountains to the ocean. The Museum, a center of priceless art and awesome architectural excellence, opened to the public on 16 December 1997. For the prior dozen years, the New York based Meier spent two weeks of every month in Los Angeles, living in a small ranch house on the site.

Meier conveys a great presence with his impressive appearance at 6' tall and 170 lbs. He married Katherine Gormley on 21 January 1978 and has two children. The family live in a Manhattan apartment that has been totally redesigned and reconstructed by Meier, even to the lowering of the floor. The furniture is also designed by him, except for pieces by Le Corbusier and Marcel Breuer, and Stella paintings adorn the walls. He still makes collages, which he considers his "workout" for architecture. His awards are many and impressive.