Richard Meier - Photographing architecture is more than art (9/36)

To listen to more of Richard Meier’s stories, go to the playlist: • Richard Meier (Architect)
Born in 1934, the prominent American architect Richard Meier is best known for the Getty Centre in Los Angeles. In all his work he refuses to bend to the trends of modern architecture. He has won many awards including the Pritzker Prize for Architecture, considered the field's highest honor. [Listener: Massimo Vignelli; date recorded: 2004]
TRANSCRIPT: I remember after the Smith House was finished one of the newspapers in London, I do not remember which one, wanted to run an article on their Sunday magazine section. And they asked a photographer who I knew, I didn’t know him well, but I knew him, named René Burri to go up and shoot... take photographs of the house for the newspaper. So I went up. It was an autumn day and we went up there. It was a beautiful fall day. Colors of the leaves all around were just changing and he was standing there getting ready to take a photograph of the house. And the people who lived next door were burning leaves and there was smoke coming from the fire of the leaves and kind of enveloping the house. I said, well, hold on René, we can’t take... Oh, this is perfect, this is perfect. He loved it and then he, sort of, took a branch that was on the ground, and kind of held it up in front of the camera and was shooting the house through the branch. I said, that’s no way to look at architecture. I said, he’s a friend of mine, hey, get that branch out of there. So that’s why I said, look, I need someone who understands architecture, not who’s just making, you know, pretty pictures to photograph. And I said... Ezra Stoller, who I had known of and I respected, seemed to me to be the best. And I said, you know, I want someone who’s just going to look at the building and figure out, you know, how do you show it? And that’s how I got to Ezra. But you know, it’s sort of, like learning to walk. You know, you take one step at a time and soon you know... you know how to do it.
[MV] And you kept that thoughout your careeer?
Yeah, yeah. Well, Ezra was great to work with, you know... I would go with him and we’d sit. I’d say, Ezra, you know, come on, take the... No, the light's not quite right. You know, he knew, in terms of what... where the light should be for every picture.