Members of the Brown community and students from nearby institutions crowded into MacMillan 117 Tuesday evening to hear architect Richard Meier deliver the first annual J. Carter Brown Memorial Lecture. Attendees filled every seat and even crowded into the aisles of the auditorium.
Steven Lubar, director of the John Nicholas Brown Center for the Study of American Civilization and professor of American Civilization, introduced Meier, who he said has received the prestigious Pritzker Prize and "just about every other award an architect can receive."
Lubar recalled the first time he visited Los Angeles' Getty Center, one of Meier's most notable works. "I remember ... the buildings, the spaces, feeling that intimate space despite the scale of the institution," said Lubar.
Meier began his lecture by thanking the University for the invitation and said, "I'm going to show you a lot of stuff - if I can figure out how," as he fumbled with the controls at the podium. Meier's down-to-earth remarks drew laughter from the enthusiastic audience - a sound that continued throughout his lecture.
Meier displayed a slideshow of examples of his work on a large projection screen, lecturing on the creative process behind each piece.
He cited the influence of Frank Lloyd Wright's "Fallingwater" on his own work and discussed Wright's concept of "organic architecture" and "the extension of space between interior and exterior."
"I realized Wright was wrong," Meier said. "What is man-made is different from what is natural. Architecture is not organic ... What is organic is everything around it - nature, what you see as you look out."
This principle of "looking out" to a building's surroundings proved to be central to Meier's discussion of his work as he progressed through slides of the houses, office buildings, museums and various other public spaces he has designed.
Meier demonstrated his constant awareness of a building's surroundings with the many waterfront houses he has designed. Whether they were on Long Island, near Lake Michigan or in Florida, Meier's houses were "private from the street side and open to the waterside," he said, permitting an exceptional enjoyment of the waterfront view.
Meier also presented his proposal of "two interconnected buildings" on the site of the World Trade Center in New York City. His proposal included the creation of a "public space in Memorial Square" and "two parks that emanated from the square that were the shadows of the World Trade Center." Meier called his project not only "an icon for New York but one of the great public spaces for the city." But his proposal was not selected for the WTC rebuilding project.
Meier's interest in public space manifested itself in numerous other works, such as the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt, Germany. He described the cafe that was built in the museum.
"All the expectant mothers in Frankfurt began to hang out there," Meier said, laughing.
Meier said the mothers returned after giving birth, creating "a lively meeting place in a great way you could never plan."
"Every building has a life of its own, and you can't imagine what that might be, because things happen outside of your control as an architect," he said.
But Meier said he intended some of his other projects to affect the public in specific ways. For example, he selected a location for the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art in Spain "in the most deteriorated part of Barcelona."
Meier recalled the construction of the Centre Pompidou and its revitalization of the surrounding neighborhood in Paris. Meier said he wanted to produce a similar effect in Barcelona, changing the area from a "slum that no one would walk in" to a neighborhood filled with shops and restaurants.
Beyond museums in Atlanta, Rome, Los Angeles and other cities around the world, Meier has also designed two buildings for the U.S. government. "I think that's enough," Meier said as the audience laughed.
Meier described his young daughter's reaction when she saw the U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building in Long Island, which he designed. "She walked in and said, 'Wow,' " he said, adding that this impression of the judicial branch is the very feeling he wanted to convey.
Meier's constant awareness of the impact of an architectural space manifested itself in his design for Jubilee Church in the Tor Tre Teste area, about 20 minutes outside of Rome.
"Your head is automatically drawn to the sky as you enter," said Meier. "As you sit there ... the light through the windows leads you to think about things outside yourself."
After Meier's lecture, he opened the floor for questions.
Kasey Ramirez, a senior at the Rhode Island School of Design majoring in illustration, asked if there were restrictions on the building site of the Ara Pacis in Rome. The building, designed by Meier, houses a sacrificial altar dating to 9 B.C.
Ramirez asked if there were restrictions affecting how much the building actually hugged the inner structure, remarking that "you have to look on the reliefs on the side obliquely."
Meier answered that there was a wall from the pre-existing building that needed to be preserved and that there was also a street on one side of the building. He explained plans to build underground in order to create a plaza and "breathing room."
"It makes perfect sense," Ramirez later told The Herald. But she continued to emphasize the importance of the reliefs on the side of the Ara Pacis, proposing "maybe a thin mezzanine" to enable the viewer to look at them more directly.
Another student asked, "Have you ever attempted to build anything that is not white?"
After laughing, Meier answered, "Not yet."
When asked why, he replied, "If you look carefully, the white is never white. It is reflecting and refracting, and that is very important to me - the way you see the sun change during the day, the way in which a cloud comes over, the change of seasons ... The building is about light. The white helps your understanding of light in the clearest way."
Meier concluded his lecture to thunderous applause, and afterwards a crowd of students gathered to ask more questions, make comments, ask for his autograph and even take a photograph with him.
"It was incredible - one of the best speakers I've ever seen at Brown," said Isabel Solmonson '08.
The lecture is named for John Carter Brown, a descendant of Nicholas Brown, for whom the University is named. John Carter Brown was the director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
The Hyatt Foundation, which awards the Pritzker Prize, is funding the annual lecture series to commemorate Carter Brown.
Lubar said the annual lecture would focus on Carter Brown's work and interests - topics including public art, museums, architecture, monuments and art history.
"We thought it would be a good idea to bring in somebody who brought together both museums and architecture, and (Meier) seemed like the perfect match," Lubar said.
"I know his work, I have the picture books, but to have him walk us through, talk about what he was thinking - it was wonderful," Lubar said.
Lubar marveled at the number of people who attended and those who stayed after the lecture to speak to Meier. "These people are going to have to leave - we have to take him out to dinner," he said after the lecture.
