Unlike some of these other lowly criminals, Richard Meier is a real builder. Not a poser. Not a fake. Meier is a dedicated, experienced, professional, productive architect who has developed his own aesthetic, his own expression of purity of form. His buildings are peaceful and elegant. With every peaceful and elegant Richard Meier building, Richard Meier has put himself to the task of honoring the creative spirit of Richard Meier. Nobody else was equal to the task.

Credentials:

Meier's career began in the mid-1960's with a number of residential essays in severe Modernist purity, including the Smith House in Connecticut. ("Modernist purity" means white and crisp and lots of angles and little comfort.) Other notable projects include the High Museum in Atlanta, buildings in New Harmony Indiana and Columbus Indiana, the Bronx Development Center in New York, the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills, and a couple of Federal Courthouses in Phoenix and Long Island. Most of these buildings are white and crisp and have lots of angles and little comfort.

The topper, though, Meier's undisputed major work, is the Getty Museum, a mammoth undertaking, and one of the important structures of the 1990's. Strangely the Getty is not white. The Getty catapulted Richard Meier into a swimming pool full of barbecue sau….. uh, I mean, catapulted Richard Meier into national prominence, and he was chosen for the $1B project in 1984, the same year he was awarded the Pritzker.

Crimes:

Oh, where to begin?

Let's begin with the tantrum. When Meier first strolled through the administrative offices of the Getty after those lowly museum employees had settled in to their offices, he took a brief look around, turned white and crisp, and exploded. "You can't allow this! You have to put out a memo! This is disgusting!" Meier was upset by those damned plebian employees and their…. unspeakably ugly personal photographs of their downmarket kids. He seemed especially offended by some clip-on koala bears.

This little story tells you at least three things. Richard Meier is a humorless martinet. Richard Meier is unsympathetic to users' need for the smallest bit of personal expression (or territorial dominance if you want to say it that way). And Richard Meier had never been in an office before.

Meier's web site says, "The materials chosen for the exterior cladding will reinforce the balance envisioned between building and site. Rough cleft travertine, a stone evoking traditionalism and endurance, has been used throughout the Getty Center offering a connection to the landscape," which is an interesting statement of principle, since this travertine was only recently connected to the walls of the legendary Bagni di Tivoli quarry, 20 kilometers east of Rome. This building is connected to a landscape that's 6,348 air miles away. Give or take.

Or we could talk about the Bronx Development Center, only recently torn down, amid much weeping and rending of garments at the loss of this 'important cultural landmark.' I encourage you to go take a look at the photos: it was a large government project, thoroughly seventies, assembled out of aluminum panels with rounded corners, extruded-looking and Star-Warsy, (in the same way certain Toyotas are Star-Warsy from the back), and designed as a home / warehouse for the mentally disabled. The architectural press said things like "dauntingly abstract in form". Some of those dreadful downmarket retarded people found it confusing, cold, and emotionally destructive. But what did they know? They were retarded to begin with, right, and they probably would have had it infested with clip-on koala bears and other nasty personal tripe if they'd been allowed to.

Or we could talk about the steps in the Museum of Television and Radio in Beverly Hills. These are the long steps in the front of the building that lead to the main attraction, the archive. Steps either fit to human rhythm and movement, or they don't. These don't. As a sculpture, the MTR is light-flooded and endlessly photogenic; as a space supposed to accommodate human users, it's an outrageous act of selfishness.

Or we could talk about that climactic and social failure called the Sandra Day O'Connor Federal Courthouse in Phoenix, the public plaza nobody is allowed to visit, the spectacular glassy void that gets 105 in the summer. Or we could talk about Meier's habit of ignoring the program and building the same Godforsaken white building over and over again.

But I imagine it's clear by now. All the great architects were and are capable of user-violence and user-neglect but with Meier this Modernist austerity tips over into cruelty. It flowers into antipathy. It blossoms into naked contempt.

I mean, that's good. At least it's on the table, y'know?