Building Blocks of Culture

This year, Richard Meier won the American Institute of Architects’ Gold Medal, its highest award, and beat the likes of Frank Gehry in a competition to design the Church of the Year 2000, commissioned by the Vatican. But the completion at the end of 1997 of the Meier-designed $1-billion Getty Center, 12 long years after Meier won the commission, marks a turning point in both the architect’s career and the cultural landscape of Los Angeles. One of the most devout and unrepentant Modernists of our time, the 62-year-old Meier reflects on the state of architecture today.

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Question: Last year, a striking number of major architectural projects were launched in Los Angeles: Spanish architect Jose Rafael Moneo will design a new cathedral, Edgar Bronfman Jr. hired Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas to design a master plan for Universal City and the Getty Center is finally nearing completion. Do you think these events will change perceptions about the civic role architecture can play in this city?

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Answer: It is certainly a positive change, by focusing attention on [what architecture can do for Los Angeles]. You know if the Getty can deal with Los Angeles not as a city of the moment but as a city that has a life which is going to go on for a long time, others can do it. That life needs sustenance. It needs culture. It needs architecture. It needs art. Culture is an enormously important aspect of the life of the city.

Q: Given those feelings, how appropriate was Rafael Moneo as a choice to design a new cathedral for Los Angeles?

A: He was a very good choice for the cathedral. And in one day he got both the Pritzker Prize and a major commission in a major city--that’s extraordinary. Part of what made it significant was that I think the church wanted to recognize the significant Spanish-speaking population in Los Angeles and probably was prone to choose an architect that could relate to that portion of the population. Moneo would certainly fit that position as well as being an outstanding architect. All things considered, it was a brave choice. He is a very talented individual, very thoughtful. And he has the ability to understand the diverse concerns of the church.

Q: Would you say Moneo’s reputation for being able to deal with historically oriented projects--such as his design for the Roman Museum in Merida, Spain--is particularly relevant to a project like this?

A: I think so. I think that his experience as [the former dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design] gives him an understanding of America, although maybe not Los Angeles in particular, but certainly an understanding of the relationship between the New World and the Old World. In an architectural sense he has the ability in his work to create a certain solidity, a certain sense of closure which deals not only with structure and with space but also with light, which is particularly important in Southern California.

Q: Do you sense that maturity in the kind of work that is being produced here by architects since your arrival in 1985 to start work on the Getty?

A: When I first came to Los Angeles and looked at the work of young architects that was going on, much of it consisted of restaurants, interiors, renovations--work with a certain life span. At that time, Eric Moss, Tom Mayne, Frank Israel--they were kids. Their work had this vibrant, active, temporal quality that was appropriate to what they were designing. Coupled with the temporal quality of Los Angeles, it seemed appropriate. Twelve years later their work has taken on a certain stability and quality, and that’s healthy. I shouldn’t say all the work out here is still ethereal, but the Getty is still unique in its respect for place in a permanent way.

Q: How so?

A: It’s an expression of the relationship of space to the landscape, building to garden, in a way that was true with [Frank Lloyd] Wright, with [Richard] Neutra, with [Rudolph] Schindler [during the first half of the century]. Somehow it got away. Up until now the perception of the Getty has been from the freeway, since not many people have been there. But the remoteness is not what you get when you come up to see it. The human scale of it is an enormous surprise, you’re unprepared for it. So far, about one-half of the Getty staff has moved in, and there is a positive response to being there, on the site.

Q: In that time, the language of architecture has radically changed--from Modernism, to Postmodernism to a freer, more open range of possibilities. Meanwhile, your work has remained unrepentantly Modernist.

A: Artists I respect had a consistent ideology and philosophy about their work. Beethoven didn’t have to reinvent music every time he wrote a symphony. The history of art is based on the development of ideas, not on jumping around from one idea to the next. If I had started the Getty in the mid-’80s with a Postmodernist approach--which was what was happening then--God help us today. That has to do with the nature of the institution: It has to be as valid today as in the beginning. That attitude is eroding in certain areas.

Q: Many of the commissions here have gone to outside architects. What effect has that had on the architectural community here?

A: What I don’t experience in Los Angeles, and quite frankly what I’ve never experienced in the 12 years that I’ve been here, is any kind of architectural discourse. Architects don’t seem to have the same camaraderie or interest in the work of others here. In New York, it happens in the universities, it happens privately, it happens in certain different ways--lectures or other kinds of events--like Philip Johnson’s 90th birthday party [last summer]. Until that happens I don’t see how it can change.

Q: Is it simply a question of cohesion?

A: It’s not cohesion. Sometimes it’s even conflict, but it’s there. When I received the AIA Gold Medal, people in New York called me. Only one person out here called me. Only one. So you know, it’s interesting. I didn’t think of it until this moment, but if you are talking about the center shifting, there has to be communication before it shifts.

Q: How then do you see these works as a step forward in the culture of Los Angeles?

A: I think this is what the Getty is bringing here, in a different way than perhaps what the church will bring here, but it deals with permanence and specificity and location, and it offers a less transitory environment. So perhaps 1996 was the beginning of a new millennium for Los Angeles. Maybe we don’t have to wait for the year 2000.