Light Years. Richard Meier x Massimo Vignelli

Richard Meier (Newark, New Jersey, United States, 12 October 1934) is an American architect. He graduated with a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University in 1957. He began his professional career in New York, working at Davis, Brody & Wisniewski, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), and Marcel Breuer's office between 1959 and 1963. In 1963, he established his own architectural practice in New York.

During the 1960s, Meier became associated with the New York Five, a group of architects that also included Peter Eisenman, Michael Graves, Charles Gwathmey and John Hejduk. Their work was presented in the 1972 publication Five Architects. His early residential projects include the Smith House in Darien, Connecticut (1967), and the Douglas House in Harbor Springs, Michigan (1973).

During the 1970s and 1980s, his practice expanded to public, institutional and cultural buildings. Projects from this period include the Twin Parks Northeast housing complex in the Bronx, New York (1974), the Bronx Developmental Center (1977), the Atheneum in New Harmony, Indiana (1979), the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (1983), and the Museum of Decorative Arts in Frankfurt, Germany (1985).

In 1984, Meier received the Pritzker Architecture Prize, becoming its youngest recipient at the age of 49. That same year, he was selected to undertake the Getty Center in Los Angeles, completed in 1997. His subsequent projects include the Canal+ Television Headquarters in Paris (1992), the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA, 1995), The Hague City Hall and Central Library in the Netherlands (1995), and the Jubilee Church in Rome (2003). Later works include the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome (2006), the Arp Museum in Remagen, Germany (2007), and San Jose City Hall in California (2005).

His architectural awards include the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (1988), the Deutscher Architekturpreis (1993), the AIA Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects (1997), and the Praemium Imperiale for Architecture from the Japan Art Association (1997). In 1992, he was appointed an Officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters, and in 1995 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Alongside his professional practice, Meier taught and lectured at several universities, including Cooper Union, Princeton University, Pratt Institute, Harvard University, Yale University and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In 2000, Cornell University appointed him Frank H. T. Rhodes Class of 1956 Professor, a position he held until 2005. He has also received honorary degrees from several academic institutions and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

In June 2021, Richard Meier retired from the architectural practice he had founded in 1963. The firm, previously known as Richard Meier & Partners Architects, was reorganised under the name Meier Partners, with Dukho Yeon and George H. Miller assuming leadership roles.