SPACE May 2024 (No. 678)
In February 2024, the Sorol Art Museum opened in Gangneung. Some say Pritzker Prize winner Richard Meier designed it, while others say it was the first work of Meier Partners, who took up his design philosophy even though he was not directly involved. What we cannot discern from those stories is that Richard Meier stepped down from his position after it was revealed that he had sexually harassed several women who worked at his company. Why is the Korean architectural community so indifferent to sexual offences in the workplace? Shouldn’t we now be able to openly discuss how to deal with the architect’s work and reconcile that with his alleged abuses?
Photograph of Richard Meier covered in SPACE No. 477 (Aug. 2007) ©Lee Joo-yeon (covered in SPACE No. 477)
The Korean Architectural Community’s Indifference to the Issue of Sexual Offences
While the domestic architectural media has published several articles focusing on female architects and feminism, there has been no specific discussion concerning sexual offences or the abuse of power in the workplace. This stands in contrast with other domestic cultural and artistic fields, such as literature and film, where many unheard voices finally emerged along with the global #MeToo movement, and the media outlets across each field forged a powerful new discourse concerning sexual violence within the cultural and artistic fields. The quarterly magazine Munhakdongne published a special roundtable titled ‘What to Do: Sexual Violence in the Literary Scene and Masculinity in Korea’ in its winter issue of 2016.▼1 The weekly magazine Cine21 organised 11 roundtable on sexual violence in the film industry and held a discussion session with WomenLink.▼2 The Directors Guild of Korea (DGK) announced that it will conduct gender equality prevention and gender equality education programmes within the guild and that it will disqualify and expel union members found to have committed sexual offences.▼3
Korean Architectural Media Remained Silent Despite the #MeToo Movement in the Overseas Architectural Community
Richard Meier’s sexual harassment was revealed in a report in The New York Times on the 13th of March, 2018.▼4 In an interview with The New York Times, all five women gave their names and revealed the facts of their experience of sexual harassment at the hands of Richard Meier. Four of them were employees of Richard Meier & Partners Architects. Two women described Richard Meier exposing his genitals at his home, one said he grabbed her underwear at a holiday party, and another said he demanded she take off all her clothes for a photo at his home. Lastly, a woman, a furniture designer, said she fled his home after an event celebrating the Getty Center’s 20th anniversary because Richard Meier tried to force her onto a bed.
Richard Meier had been on a six-month leave of absence since March 2018, saying, ‘Everyone’s memories may differ, but I sincerely apologise to everyone whose actions have hurt.’ However, on the 9th of October, 2018, in The New York Times, he suddenly stated that he was taking an extended period of leave for health reasons, not because of the lawsuit, and that he was still at the top and had no plans to retire.▼5 Three years later, on the 23rd of June, 2021, did Richard Meier & Partners Architects announce the news of Richard Meier’s retirement and change its name to Meier Partners (design partner-in-charge, Dukho Yeon). However, they say Richard Meier is still able to provide consultations if clients were to request them.
Overseas architectural media outlets such as Dezeen and ArchDaily quickly picked up on The New York Times story and reported it in their own publications. The Korean media followed suit, reporting that the #MeToo movement had spread to the U.S. architecture community in light of the Richard Meier sexual scandal. The only response from the domestic architecture media that can be confirmed is the special feature in SPACE No. 624, which cited part of the first report article in The New York Times.
Of course, sexual assault in the workplace is brutal to detect unless a whistleblower comes forward. In a discussion by female architects featured in the special issue ‘Women ( ) Architecture’ in SPACE No. 624, Kim Jeongim (principal, Seoro Architects) pointed out that there was no #MeToo movement in the domestic architectural field and said about the difficulty of whistle-blowing, ‘It may be that there is less discrimination against women in the architectural world, or conversely, that the problem doesn’t surface as those who expose the issues are likely to be excluded from the practice’. For this reason, it is challenging to address domestic issues. However, despite news emerging from the #MeToo movement in architecture abroad, the fact that there was no discussion about sexual harassment is pessimistic. By remaining silent on this issue, it has created an environment in which victims continue to be forced to hide and perpetrators are allowed to operate with impunity.
Exterior of the Sorol Art Museum nearing completion, Jan. 2024. Image courtesy of Meier Partners / ©Yongbaek Lee
How to Deal with the Architecture of Sex Offenders?
The current prevailing attitude of the media to highlight celebrity names without offering any critical appreciation of the facts of the offence, even in cases that have already come to light, is certainly problematic. Most Korean media reported the opening of the Sorol Art Museum (2024) designed by Meier Partners, as ‘designed by Pritzker Prize winner Richard Meier’ or ‘embodying the philosophy of Richard Meier, the master of white’. Only a handful of media outlets mentioned Richard Meier’s sexual misconduct revelations, and even then, it was in daily newspapers and design magazines, not in the architectural media. Is it possible that there was an impact to perpetuate a culture of silence in the architectural field, by discussing feminism in architecture without addressing the thorny issue of sexual assault by an architect in the era of #MeToo? I want to think about how to approach a perpetrator’s architecture.
Let’s start with the first argument that is often invoked whenever the relationship between the ethics of an artist and one’s artwork is discussed. Can the author and the work exist independently of each other? The idea of separating the author from the work is a viewpoint that can be found throughout the literary criticism of twentieth-century New Criticism, as well as in Kant’s theory of disinterestedness. This idea is that a purely aesthetic experience can only be achieved by looking at an artwork without the historical reality of its creation, the artist’s ethics, and more. It is a necessary perspective in the context of judging and learning about architectural order and form.
On the other hand, some view artworks and artists as social products and that understanding them requires understanding the time, place, and social context in which they were created. In real life, purely aesthetic judgements are rarely possible or necessary. In particular, it is worth paying attention to the background of the work, as architecture is not the sole work of a single artist but is commissioned and created through the collaboration of many entities and continues to be useful in society, used by various people.
If one takes the latter view, the question becomes less ‘Can we separate the work from the author?’ and more ‘Will critics and media outlets continue to cover the work of ethically problematic authors?’ For example, in 2018, there was a debate about whether the works of poet Go Eun, theatre director Lee Yountaek and Oh Taeseok, who were accused of sexual offences, should be included in textbooks. One can choose not to critique the offender’s work at all. The reason for this choice is that critics and media have a finite amount of time, so it makes sense to curate the work and apply ethical standards. Dezeen hasn’t published any projects of Richard Meier and his company since Dezeen reported that his company name changed to Meier Partners in 2021. On the contrary, it is argued that excluding their work from critical appraisals or surveys could lead to forgetting the seriousness of the crimes they committed. The reality is not perfect and faultless, so it has to include a history of shame and failure. If a critic decides to cover their work, they should do so from a critical perspective and mention the fact of the sexual offence. However, ArchDaily published the Sorol Art Museum in its projects section, without linking to the article reporting his sexual scandal neither in the text nor in a related post. The domestic architecture media also promoted the opening of the Sorol Art Museum without mentioning the scandal surrounding the architect.
Lastly, it is not a critical judgement, but there are times when consumers can choose not to consume a work. The Moonji Publishing Company has said it will sift through the cases of poets who have been involved in sexual scandals and cut their publishing relationships. The Jeju Museum of Art also withdrew a work by a photographer who had been accused of sexual misconduct after it was criticised for exhibiting his work. In the architectural field, many projects by RIBA and AIA Gold Medalist David Adjaye, another architect accused of sexual offences, have been suspended or terminated.
Sexual violence in the arts and culture industry is often driven by the power that comes with fame. The reputation of a star architect is a means of making money by building more buildings. So even when victims do speak up, the company tries to sweep it under the carpet to protect profit. Far from solving problems, it is about forcing the victim to leave the company and ending their career. This is why it can be hard to decide to report a sexual assault. Thus, in a capitalist society, the public’s refusal to consume the work of an architect who has committed a crime can be an expression of solidarity with the victims.
Conclusion
In Korea, Richard Meier is being used as an active promotional tool, with the title of Pritzker Prize winner quickly attracting public attention. Before the Sorol Art Museum was The Palace 73 (scheduled to be completed in 2027), it was known as ‘Richard Meier Masterpiece’. With Richard Meier’s name being mentioned so many times, would ignoring the news about him be tantamount to going along with the domestic architectural community’s atmosphere in saying ‘it is okay to do so’? Although this is only an example of an overseas architect, I hope that by pointing this out, we can continue to foreground the discussion on the issue of sexual violence in the workplace.
written by Kim Bokyoung
The article of The New York Times, ‘5 Women Accuse the Architect Richard Meier of Sexual Harassment’, published online on the 13rd of March, 2018 and the front page of The New York Times published on the 14th of March, 2018 ©Kim Bokyoung
Appendix: Commentary from Korean Women Architects
Not all members of the architectural community are indifferent to the issue of sexual misconduct in the workplace. It’s just that their voice hasn’t been heard. With this article, I hoped to spark discussion about sexual violence in the workplace across the domestic architectural community and to listen to the voices of architects who have already engaged with this issue.
At the core of this discussion lies the old question: can we separate the work from the author? There are good arguments for both views, but recent discoveries have made the need inevitable to re-investigate architecture history.
With a shifting ethical framework another question arises: can a building’s architectural value be separated from the circumstances that brought it into existence, from exploitative working conditions and abuse of power in architecture offices to human rights violations on the construction site, to accepting work in countries with oppressive regimes.
The ‘star architect’ mechanisms made these questions even more relevant, as not the building itself, but the brand-name of the star architect becomes inseparably entangled with our judgment of the architecture. Star architecture became a marketing tool disconnected from the physical reality: work and author became one. Within a star architect system the conduct of the person cannot be separated from the brand nor from the architecture the brand generates, even if the person itself is not the actual author. Talking about the case of Richard Meier is unlikely to generate more widespread ethical reflection in architecture. To address his misconduct would require a re-evaluation of all the male master architects of history, including Le Corbusier, Adolf Loos, Alvar Aalto, Charles Eames, and others, because their mindset, their mentality and attitudes toward discriminating against any class of people, cannot help but affect their work.
written by Ryul Song
The discussion should not be limited to why the victims failed to disclose their story or how to judge the perpetrator and the work they produced. We need to examine, from various angles, what structures create architects who commit gender-based violence and the architectural communities that condones such acts.
Richard Meier was not only the victims’ boss but also a master architect, a widely recognised author, and an international celebrity. How much power does someone who can exert such influence have, and what does it take to raise a problem against such a perpetrator? If we were to dare say how much courage the women who reported Richard Meier had and how much courage those who remained silent must have, from the victim’s perspective, the power of the perpetrator would be more than an unspoken pressure. In addition to the harm caused by sexual offences, accusations can result in the loss of professional training, career prospects, and relationships in the architectural profession. We also cannot ignore the unique culture of the architectural field. The overtime work-at-night culture, which is encouraged from the undergraduate level, perpetuates violations of labour rights. Moreover, the interconnectedness of academia, media, and industry makes speaking up difficult. The result is a climate of ‘covering up problems’. In this context, the fact that no woman in the community has come forward to disclose their experiences of sexual assault publicly is not proof that the Korean architectural society is entirely perfect and faultless.
Therefore, sexual crimes based on a power imbalance should never be dismissed as an individual architect’s problem. The solution lies in a radical critique of the internalised androcentric views of contemporary architecture. It will be an ethical challenge to face and an intellectual reconfiguration of architecture. Society Of Feminist Architects will hold internal discussions based on the above.
written by Society Of Feminist Architects
Munhakdongne No. 89 (Dec. 2016) and Cine21 No. 1079 (Nov. 2016) ©Kim Bokyoung
1. Kang Jihee, KimShin Hyunkyung, Oh Chanho, Chung Serang, MoonKang Hyungjun, ‘What to do—Sexual Violence in the Literary World and Masculinity in South Korea’, Munhakdongne 89 (Dec. 2016), pp. 35 – 111.
2. Starting with Lee Yeji, ‘“The misogyny on set is reflected in the film’s content”—actress Rie Young Zin, Kim Kkotbi, PD An Boyeong, director Nam Soona’, Cine21 1079 (Nov. 2016), pp. 60 – 65 and ending with Lee Yeji, ‘Eleventh Roundtable on Sexual Violence in the Film Industry: Filmmaking Students at the Korea National University of Arts, School of Film, TV & Multimedia—Kang Mulgyul, Kwak Sojin, Lee Jimin, Choi Hana’, Cine21 1089(Jan. 2017.), pp. 66 – 73, they conducted eleven roundtables.
3. Directors Guild of Korea, ‘[Focus] Directors Guild of Korea’s statement on the article ‘#Sexual_violence_in_the_film_industry’ in No. 1079’, Cine21, Nov. 11, 2016, http://www.cine21.com/news/view/?mag_id=85624, accessed Mar. 26, 2024.
4. Robin Pogrebin, ‘5 Women Accuse the Architect Richard Meier of Sexual Harassment’, The New York Times, Mar. 13, 2018, http://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/arts/design/richard-meier-sexual-harassment-allegations.html, accessed Mar. 26, 2024.
5.Robin Pogrebin, ‘The Architect Richard Meier Steps Down After Harassment Allegations’, The New York Times, Oct. 9, 2018, http://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/arts/design/richard-meier-metoo-firm.html, accessed Mar. 26, 2024.
