In a story published by the New York Times this morning, five women—four of whom worked with Meier and another who encountered him through the Getty—have gone on record with their stories of sexual harassment and assault at the hands of Richard Meier. The behavior ranges from grabbing a woman's "underwear through her dress at a firm holiday party," to exposing himself to unwilling employees. In one instance, according to the Times, Meier forcefully pulled a women into bed, causing her to flee his home in Los Angeles.
With these women going public, Mr. Meier has decided to take a six month leave from his firm, which is a rather short amount of time considering the severity of these accusations. He has issued the following statement: “I am deeply troubled and embarrassed by the accounts of several women who were offended by my words and actions. While our recollections may differ, I sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by my behavior. I am leaving the company in the hands of a dedicated and outstanding senior management team, which has spent the past three decades serving our clients and building our firm’s success.”
28 Comments
Crack...
There should be an office walk out. This is as much about workplace conditions as it is about gender inequality. Unacceptable. Even while he is on leave, Richard Meier will still be making profit on the backs of the workers he has abused.
6 months leave, just long enough to hope people's memories get fuzzy. Combine that with a bullshit non-apology and you have a man who has abdicated his responsibility to his profession, colleagues, and employees. No spine. You made the shitty choices, now own them.
The white whale might croak in 6 months... still not long enough.
I hope archinect never takes a job posting from them again.
I have heard of at least 2 incidences where DICK Meier has tried to get sexual favors from consultant's employees. And his work sucks.
On another day we’ll have to examine how is it that the New York Times will report on the gross behavior of an old white whale from the 80s but neglect the work of the arch profession, that has a large influence on lives outside of the profession. Maybe pop media also needs a reckoning.
Sex sells papers and ads. Architecture... not so much.
Interesting thought -- if you could lose your license for sexual harassment... good idea, Rick. Wonder if that's on the books in any state?
He's just going to go out to his summer house in Eastern Long Island for 6 months, it's like a paid vacation.
How To Stop Sexual Harassment In Design Right Now. https://www.fastcodesign.com/9...
Don't be a bathrobe.
From the article: “In one instance, according to the Times, Meier forcefully pulled a women into bed, causing her to flea his home in Los Angeles.”
How does one “flea” a home?
MDWed
It's like the opposite of mothballing.
Jump really far.
These guys could tell you how to flea a house.
In spite of Meier’s downfall, I’m not sure this says anything about the larger profession—everyone will do performative hand wringing, etc, but this seems like a Woody Allen situation — old creepy New York man from another time—aided by a New York media culture.
Women have already taken power positions in many areas of architecure, a generally progressive profession. And it didn’t really take an incident to provoke it. Architecure is both similar to society at large but also has some differences—id expect a lot more harassment by developers, engineers, etc, mostly because architects don’t have to harrass to get ... you know what I mean. Seems like a lot media types have their knives out... if Meier is all they get, no big loss. Unless there are less famous arch’s that the NYT passed on...
It's no defense, of course, but his behavior was obvious and gross, and the guy looks decrepit. I'm an outsider and am curious. How do architectural firms handle less obvious cases, with what guidelines, say consensual sex with peers, with superiors.
For comparison, writer Sherman Alexie has fallen in the net.
consensual sex with peers is generally allowable isn't it? i think it would be hard to make the case that consesual sex with a superior is not an abusive use of power, coersion, or favortism. it seems it does sometimes happen without creating a toxic work environment though.
i'll add that there is no case where exposing yourself in an open bathrobe to a coworker or employee the way he did
is acceptable.
It’s really just a less public form of the good old trench coat in the mall parking lot guy. Gross and weird thing to do.
Before this news broke, I asked my firm to convert one of the conference rooms into a meditation/prayer/lactation/mother's room. Yea me?
This reminds me of the story of the guy being interviewed by Philip Johnson for a job, in Johnson's bedroom, with Johnson in a bathrobe ...
"Yeah, PJ's a pretty notorious homo" is one of my favorite lines ever uttered by my old boss, to a client who wasn't up on the gossip.
The power relationships in Architecture firms are infamous, but understood as the price one pays for moving up. The only way to reduce these incidents is to out the offenders wherever they are. There's something beautiful about justice.
Where is the DICK?
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