Richard Meier - Changes in the architectural community (30/36)

What we've just been talking about in terms of the exchange of ideas, the kinds of events that took place in New York among architects, that took place in the schools and teaching, as we look back, we think what was unique was unique because there was a respect, I think, for one another's work, for what people were doing. There was appreciation. There wasn't a sense of competition. It was almost a support system rather than a commitment. And I think maybe today, since the times are different, the situation is different, but there isn't the same communication. There isn't the same closeness. There isn't the same kind of interchange, not only among our generation. I don't see it in the younger generations. It doesn't exist there. A lot of good architects who have worked in this office and, in a sense, graduated and gone on in terms of their own practice, they seem isolated to me. They don't seem to be connected formally or informally with others, either through teaching or through practice. And I think that's a shame because I think there's an enrichment that one gets from this experience, which I know we've had together, that I think these younger people are missing. Is it a byproduct of the media situation? It could be. I honestly don't know whether it's the media. The media is trying to make stars out of any number of people. And it's sort of the media star of the week, as it were, that we see. It could be the media's attention on architecture. The media didn't even write about architecture. Anita Louise Huxtable didn't exist writing about architecture in those days. She was perhaps pivotal in terms of architectural criticism. And the most brilliant and prolific and sensitive critic around. And after Anita Louise, I think it became more a reporting on architecture than cultural criticism in the way in which she approached it. And so it's sort of, what's the headline today? We just saw it. However, it was true then, 40 years ago, the New York Times would never talk about this. Yeah, that's true. No, I'm not saying it's necessarily negative. It's just different. No, I mean, in the Times today, you have two articles on architecture. They're not always right. At least it's there. And the public's interested. I mean, there's a public interest. Otherwise, it wouldn't be there. The public wants to know. They want to know what's happening and where is it happening.