Meier, designer of the billion-dollar Getty Center in Los Angeles, is taking six months’ leave from his firm after five women made the allegations

Richard Meier, one of the world’s most renowned architects, has stepped down as head of his firm following sexual harassment accusations from several women going back decades. Four women who worked with Meier and a fifth who met him on a project have detailed encounters in which they say he sexually harassed them.

“I am deeply troubled and embarrassed by the accounts of several women who were offended by my words and actions,” said Meier in a statement on his website. “While our recollections may differ, I sincerely apologise to anyone who was offended by my behaviour. Effective today, I am taking a six-month leave of absence as founder and managing partner.”

The New York Times reported on Tuesday that the earliest accusation dates from the 1980s, when Meier was designing the Getty Center in Los Angeles. The furniture designer Carol Vena-Mondt said Meier invited her to dinner at his home, where she turned out to be the only guest, and tried to forcefully engage in sexual activity.



“I twisted and pulled away from him, and he grabbed one of my arms and started dragging me down the hallway toward the bedroom,” Vena-Mondt said. The other allegations come from women who worked with Meier in the 2000s and include reports that he exposed himself to two of the women at his apartment.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Getty Center in Brentwood, Los Angeles. Photograph: Alamy

A third woman claimed Meier showed her photographs he had taken of naked women and asked her to undress. A fourth woman said Meier grabbed her underwear through her dress at a company party.

Meier, 83, is a winner of the Pritzker prize, the most celebrated award in architecture. He received the Gold Medal, the Royal Institute of British Architects’ highest accolade, in 1997. His signature style of minimal, geometric, modernist buildings, invariably all-white, has kept him at the top of his profession since the 1980s.

As well as the billion-dollar Getty Center, his firm, Richard Meier and Partners Architects, has built high-profile projects around the world, including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art and the Jubilee Church in Rome. His only UK project to date is a large private house in Oxfordshire, completed in 2016. In Meier’s abscence, the firm said its projects would be overseen by a partner in its Los Angeles office and by associate partners in its New York headquarters.

Historic sexual harassment and gender equality have been widely discussed in architectural circles in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement. In 2014, the American Institute of Architects adopted a sexual harassment policy. “We are deeply troubled by the allegations in The New York Times today,” said AIA president Carl Elefante, “and believe that sexual harassment– in any form and in any workplace – should not be tolerated and must be addressed swiftly and forcefully.”