Richard Meier

At the age of 49, Richard Meier was the youngest architect ever to receive his profession's highest award, the Pritzker Architecture Prize. Soon after, he received what is probably one of the most important commissions of the 20th century: the design of the Getty Center, the Los Angeles art complex funded by the J. Paul Getty Trust.

Explaining his own roots, Meier states: "Le Corbusier was a big influence, but there are many influences and they are constantly changing. Frank Lloyd Wright was a great architect, and I couldn't have done my parents' house the way I did without being impressed by Falling Water. Meier continued: "We are all influenced by LeCorbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, Alvar Aalto and Mies van der Rohe. But no less than Bramante, Borromini and Bernini. Architecture is a tradition, a long continuum. Whether we break with tradition or improve it, we are still connected to that past.

In 1963, he established his private practice and, working from his flat, launched the business with a commission for his parents, a residence in Essex Fells, New Jersey. In 1965, one of his first residential commissions, the Smith House in Darien, Connecticut, catapulted him to national fame. Looking back now, Meier spoke of "the clarity of the building, the openness, the direct articulation of public and private spaces, how it relates to land and water". He added: "More than 17 years have passed, and what was then innovative and captured the imagination and admiration of many people, is now part of our language, and in a way taken for granted".

Other commissions for private houses followed, along with some public projects. In 1967, work began on the conversion of the former Bell Telephone Laboratories in Manhattan's Greenwich Village to house some 1,200 people in 383 flats. The result was hailed in the architectural community as the first proof that Meier's greatest achievements may ultimately lie in larger public works. "This is also an example of how quickly we assimilate things," Meier said. "The phrase, "adaptive reuse", didn't even exist then. We were pioneers in a new area.

In 1979, after nearly five years of work, Meier completed another job, prompting Ada Louise Huxtable to write in the New York Times that the building advances "conventional modernist practice provocatively beyond established boundaries". The building referred to is known as The Atheneum, located on the banks of the Wabash River in the restaurant community of New Harmony, Indiana.

On an even larger scale, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta (Georgia) was completed in 1983. Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for the New York Times, wrote in the June 1983 issue of Vogue: "It is no coincidence that Richard Meier is becoming one of the pre-eminent architects of museums".

In addition to the High Museum, he has designed a major museum for Frankfurt, Germany, an extension to the Des Moines Art Center in Iowa, as well as many other types of commissions around the world. We honour Richard Meier for his unwavering pursuit of the essence of modern architecture. He has expanded its range of forms to meet the expectations of our time.

In his search for clarity and his experiments in the balance of light and space, he has created personal, vigorous, original structures.

His achievements are just prologue to the new and engaging experiences we expect from his drawing board.