Richard Meier Quotes

If a building becomes architecture, then it is art.

Truly great architecture always transcends its stated function, sometimes in unanticipated ways.

Is the Mona Lisa an 'accurate' representation of the actual human model for the painting? Who knows? Who cares? It's a great piece of art. It moves us. It makes us wonder, makes us gape - finally makes us look inward at ourselves.

Once we decided to do a tower in New York, it had to say something about our group, reflecting the mix of modernity and creativity in our organization. It's a symbol.

I think architecture has to be a gift.

In any architecture, there is an equity between the pragmatic function and the symbolic function.

There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart. There is a powerful need for symbolism, and that means the architecture must have something that appeals to the human heart.

I do believe architecture, and all art, should be content-driven. It should have something to say beyond the sensational.

Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life, necessary for everyone in a civilized society.

You have to accept as an architect to be exposed to criticism. Architecture should not rely on full harmony.

Any work of architecture that has with it some discussion, some polemic, I think is good. It shows that people are interested, people are involved.

I wish someone would ask me to design a cathedral.

Architecture is measured against the past; you build in the future, and you try to imagine the future.

Almost every time I make a building, some people will condemn it straight to Hell.

Ah, to build, to build! That is the noblest art of all the arts. Painting and sculpture are but images, Are merely shadows cast by outward things On stone or canvas, having in themselves No separate existence. Architecture, Existing in itself, and not in seeming A something it is not, surpasses them As substance shadow.

Art is about people. I think the discussion about whether architecture is art or not is lamebrain.

We say arts education is good for general education, but that's not the point. The arts are what great nations are remembered for. They are a mirror.

I wrote 'The Painted Word,' about modern art, and was denounced as reactionary. In fact, it is just a history, although a rather loaded one.

I love creating things. I love making things.

There's a kind of beauty to a skyscraper.

Once people write criticism about something - and even in 1967 I was far from alone - they're assuming it's art, and art is supposed to last.

Anytime something is a little new and a little fresh, it's going to be critiqued.

Art is more than a series of images that are disembodied. Art is objects that live in real places, economies, spaces, architecture.

Architects think that beauty is a crime.

When people agree with you, they'll just like it and keep it moving, but when people don't agree with you, that's when they come for your whole neck.