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LIVING MASTERS IN THE STUDIO WITH RAYMOND PETTIBON FEB/MARCH 2017 BY THE SEA With a half century of captivating waterfront

G projects under his belt, gives G A M

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J an elegant update to Miami’s Surf Club. L I S

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It could be said that Richard Meier’s architecture career truly began, more than five decades ago, on the water. His first credited project was a modest beachfront cottage he designed on New York’s Fire Island for artist Saul Lambert and his wife. A simple rectilinear box, with abundant glass and an open interior, the house reflected Meier’s unshakable commitment to the modernist ideals espoused by and by the young architect’s boss at the time, . “This small house, which was built in just nine days for a total cost of $9,000, was strongly inspired by what I’d learned from Marcel Breuer,” recounts Meier. The only thing the precut-timber structure lacked was the white palette he would become so famous for. Within a year Meier founded his namesake firm in , and he soon established a reputation as a designer of strikingly elegant residences that combined bold geometric volumes, dynamically intersecting planes and exquisitely minimalist surfaces. The most refined of the so-called New York Five architects—a group that also included , , and —Meier was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 1984, when he was just 49, shortly after completing the in . Coveted commissions for courthouses, campus buildings and more museums followed, notably his most famous project, the sprawling hilltop Getty Center in —which turns 20 this year. Not atypically for an architect of his stature, Meier has had numerous opportunities to build on prime plots, and waterfront sites in particular have

168 culturedmag.com culturedmag.com 169 “You know, some people take a day off and play golf. I take a day off and go work in a studio.” —Richard Meier

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Y S E T R U O C been a recurring theme across his long career. For time before the Pritzker laureate joined the roster of building, which will feature two restaurants. On either one thing, his distinctive, crisply sculpted forms look celebrated architects who’ve contributed buildings to side of the building are large, 12-story asymmetrical particularly arresting and iconic set against blue Miami’s runaway real estate boom. Enlisted by the towers—one has a curved façade, while the other is expanses of water and sky, their white surfaces developer Fort Partners, Meier has overseen a much- stepped—containing 150 airy condos finished in changing with the varying light conditions. And anticipated expansion of the Surf Club, the storied warmly spare, classic Meier style. The complex also because of their emphasis on light, transparency and private getaway in Surfside, just north of Miami boasts a spa, four swimming pools, gardens openness, his buildings are tailor-made for such Beach, that opened in 1930 and once welcomed designed by Fernando Wong and some 40 beach settings, from the Ackerberg House on the beach in Frank Sinatra, Gary Cooper, Elizabeth Taylor and cabanas arrayed in a serpentine pattern, nodding to Malibu to the Perry Street condo towers overlooking Winston Churchill, who liked to paint in the ocean- the original. the Hudson River in New York City to the recently facing cabanas that snaked gracefully along the The idea from the outset was “to keep the new completed Seamarq Hotel with panoramic lake and sand. buildings as minimal as possible and let the old Surf sea views in Gangneung, South Korea. “When I look Opening in April, the new Surf Club is a dramatic Club be the jewel in the operation,” says Bernhard back over 50 years, it’s amazing the number of update from the old one. The original building, Karpf, the project’s associate partner-in-charge who projects I’ve had on the water, from private houses designed by Russell Pancoast in Mediterranean has worked in Meier’s offices since 1988. to hotels,” says the architect. “I’ve been very lucky Revival style, with stucco walls and a terra-cotta tile “Ultimately, the contrast between the old and new, to have worked on sites where the light reflected off roof, has been restored. But Meier, working in in terms of scale and material finishes and detailing, the water changes with the different times of day and consultation with Miami architect Kobi Karp, has works really well.” different seasons.” added an eye-catching trio of metal-and-glass In the end, the architecture is all about It’s perhaps surprising, then, that Richard Meier structures. At the center, a tower housing a Four amplifying the setting and having 1,000 feet of & Partners is only now realizing its first project in Seasons hotel and residences (with interiors by unobstructed beachfront in Miami was a rare luxury. Miami, given the city’s abundance of water and designer Joseph Dirand, known for his own sensuous “I couldn’t imagine a more interesting site than this compelling light. Of course, it was only a matter of brand of minimalism) rises above the Pancoast one,” says Meier. “With views out to the bay on one The Lambert House on Fire Island, New York was completed in 1962.

170 culturedmag.com culturedmag.com 171 A new Four Seasons hotel will rise from “We’ve had designs that have never the center of the Surf Club’s existing been built, and it’s nice now to have a exterior courts. number of these things coming to fruition. Good things come late in life.” —Richard Meier

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Y S E T R U O C side and ocean views on the other, the quality of light locales where Meier hasn’t previously worked. To a wasn’t my choice!” explains Meier, gamely noting is incredible.” large extent these shifts have to do with global that “even though the glass is very dark, there’s a Looking ahead to other Meier projects slated for economics, but it also reflects how the practice is still a transparency about it, and the interiors are all completion in 2017, there are residential towers in evolving under the leadership of the six partners not white. You could say it’s like living in a white building , Tokyo and Taipei as well as a high-rise mixed- named Meier, who include, in addition to Karpf, with sunglasses.” use complex in Mexico City. That last project, known James R. Crawford, Michael Palladino, Vivian Lee, After all these years, Meier says the most as Reforma Towers, promises to establish a new Reynolds Logan and Dukho Yeon. rewarding part of his work—other than seeing landmark on one of the Mexican capital’s busiest Not that Meier didn’t want to build tall people enjoying a completed building—is still the thoroughfares, with the larger of the two buildings buildings earlier on. Pointing to his 1987 proposal early design stages, when he is conceptualizing and (40 and 27 stories) distinguished by a large wedge- to put a 72-story skyscraper atop Madison Square sketching. Despite the advances in digital modeling, shaped void spectacularly cut out of its middle, Garden, he notes, “We’ve had designs that have Meier has never taken to working on a computer. He creating, as Meier describes it, “a sort of a plaza in never been built, and it’s nice now to have a retains a deep love of physical, three-dimensional the sky.” The terrace, which will likely feature a number of these things coming to fruition. Good models, and dozens of the ones his firm has created restaurant, not only offers views in virtually every things come late in life.” are now on permanent display—as the Richard direction, but it also serves the functional purpose of At the moment, Meier has two residential Meier Model Museum—at the Mana Contemporary bringing natural ventilation into the building and buildings—each 460 feet tall—under construction space in Jersey City, New Jersey. Numerous reducing the need for air conditioning. on both coasts of Manhattan. One is part of the exhibitions have been devoted to Meier’s prolific It’s notable that so many of the firm’s current Riverside Center development on the West Side, output—both his architecture and the spirited projects are residential and office towers—something while the other, on a parcel overlooking the East collages he continues to make. “You know,” remarks Meier wasn’t especially known for during the first River just south of the United Nations, has received Meier, “some people take a day off and play golf. I decades of his career. Many of them are also in much fanfare as his first-ever black building. “It take a day off and go work in a studio.”

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