RICHARD MEIER
Meier is Jewish and was born in Newark, New Jersey. He earned a Bachelor of Architecture degree
from Cornell University in 1957, worked forSkidmore, Owings and Merrill briefly in 1959, and then
for Marcel Breuer for three years, prior to starting his own practice in New York in 1963. Identified
as one of The New York Five in 1972, his commission of the Getty Centre in Los Angeles, California
catapulted his popularity into the mainstream. Richard Meier & Partners Architects has offices in
New York and Los Angeles with current projects ranging from China and Tel Aviv to Paris and
Hamburg.
Much of Meier's work builds on the work of architects of the early to mid-20th century, especially
that of Le Corbusier and, in particular, Le Corbusier's early phase. Meier has built more using
Corbusier's ideas than anyone, including Le Corbusier himself. Meier expanded many ideas evident
in Le Corbusier's work, particularly the Villa Savoye and the Swiss Pavilion.
JUBILEE CHURCH,ROME
For the new millenium, the Vatican decided to found 50 new churches in Rome. In 1995 an
international competition for the church in tor tre teste took place, which was won by Richard
Meier. So in 1998 the work started, it took five years until the competition of the church. The church
is situated in a suburb east of Rome, surrounded by 1970's apartment blocks and on the edge of a
huge park. Light is the main theme inside the Church. Three shells for the inside of the nave, the roof
and the slots between the shells are made in glass. The large amount of glass and the materials give
you the feeling of being outside under the light sky.
The south side of the church features three large curved walls of pre-cast concrete. (The walls form
segments of spheres.) Meier claims to have designed the church to minimize thermal peak loads
inside. The large thermal mass of the concrete walls control internal heat gain; the result is less
temperature variation, and supposedly more efficient use of energy. The walls also contain titanium
dioxide to keep the appearance of the church white. Three circles of equal radius generate the
profiles of the three shells that, together with the spine-wall, make up the body of the church nave –
and discretely imply the Holy Trinity.
Transparency and light cascade down from the skylit roof, literally invading the interior of the church
also penetrating from below through a narrow slot opened at floor level. People in the atrium are
enveloped with mystical light
With the structure supported by the curved cantilever of the concrete-clad shells, reaching over
towards the opposite "spine" wall, the west (altar) and east (organ) walls are light glazing,
surrounding the bright, white set pieces for the cross. Taking part in a prayer, you feel like
celebrating in the presence of God because of the roof of the nave, the eastern and the western
facade entirely made in glass. Despite all the glazing, the geometry is such that direct sun almost
never comes into the church.
Getty Center
Meier has exploited the two naturally-occurring ridges (which diverge at a 22.5 degree angle) by
overlaying two grids along these axes. These grids serve to define the space of the campus while
dividing the import of the buildings on it. Along one axis lie the galleries and along the other axis lie
the administrative buildings. Meier emphasized the two competing grids by constructing strong view
lines through the campus. The main north-south axis starts with the helipad, then includes a narrow
walkway between the auditorium and north buildings, continues past the elevator kiosk to the tram
station, through the rotunda, past the walls and support columns of the exhibitions pavilion, and
finally the ramp besides the west pavilion and the central garden. Its corresponding east-west visual
axis starts with the edge of the scholar's wing of the Getty Research Institute (GRI), the walkway
between the central garden and the GRI, the overlook to the azalea pool in the central garden, the
walkway between the central garden and the west pavilion, and finally the north wall of the west
pavilion and the courtyard between the south and east pavilions.
The main axes of the museum grid that is offset by 22.5 degrees begins with the arrival plaza, carries
through the edge of the stairs up to the main entrance, aligns with the columns supporting the
rotunda as well as the center point of the rotunda, aligns with travertine benches in the courtyard
between the pavilions, includes a narrow walkway between the west and south pavilions, a staircase
down to the catus garden and ends in the garden. The corresponding cross axis starts with the
center point of the circle forming the GRI library garden, then passing to the center of the entrance
rotunda, and aligning with the south wall of the rotunda building. Although all of the museum is
aligned on these alternative axes, portions of the exhibitions pavilion and the east pavilion are
aligned on the true north-south axis as a reminder that both grids are present in the campus.