While starchitect Richard Meier is famous for his work in both New York City and Los Angeles, his Sunday afternoons are fairly humdrum, according to the New York Times, which profiled Meier’s “Sunday Routine.” On his list of favorite pastimes is reading in Central Park (he favors biographies of noted artists like Robert Rauschenberg and Pablo Picasso) and listening to classical music from composers like Beethoven, Brahms and Bartok. As for Sunday football, Meier said he’s a fan of both the Jets and the Giants. “If I could, I would like to have more than one Sunday a week,” Meier said. [NYT]

As though the release of the 200-page 2011 Zoning Handbook were not sufficiently exciting for wonkish sensibilities, the agency responsible, the Department of City Planning, has just released “Vision 2020: New York City Comprehensive Waterfront Plan,” which is an update and extension of a similar study published in 1992.

It takes stock of what has been accomplished and what still needs to be accomplished along the nearly 520 miles of waterway that surrounds the five boroughs. As the report points out, four of those boroughs are on islands, and the fifth, the Bronx, is on a peninsula.

It would not be exactly fair to say that Vision 2020 is a deeply original document. [more]

From the February issue: Rather like the fabled (and fabulous) 15 Central Park West, but designed for a somewhat different clientele, Annabelle Selldorf’s 200 Eleventh Avenue has assumed a nearly mythic stature among those happy souls who take an almost libidinous interest in Manhattan real estate. Even before its completion, its soaring ceilings, its varied amenities and its location in Chelsea, overlooking the Hudson River, made it seem like some fantastic apparition to the majority of New Yorkers, who could only look into its massive windows in amazement. [more]

On Prospect Park, the Richard Meier-designed condominium at 1 Grand Army Plaza, sold the first of its five penthouses, for $3.97 million, according to the Observer. The buyer is a trust associated with the Kanfer family of Akron, Ohio, who run GOJO Industries, a company that makes the hand sanitizer Purell. The 3,500-square-foot, four-bedroom unit, on the southern side of the 15-story building, features wraparound views of Brooklyn and Manhattan, including the Statue of Liberty, Chrysler Building and Prospect Park. “The building itself, the architecture is drawing a lot of interest, not only from Brooklyn but across the United States and from Europe and Australia, as well,” broker Cheryl Nielsen-Saaf of the Corcoran Group said. [more]

From L: Richard Meier, Olafur Eliasson and Richard Armstrong

Like countless New Yorkers on Jan. 1, the city’s elite have determined their own New Year’s resolutions for 2011. Famous architect Richard Meier, who plans to design a building located in either Brazil or India, was one of several New York City icons putting his resolutions to print in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend. Olafur Eliasson, a Danish artist who created man-made “waterfall” sculptures around New York, said his resolution was to “create a work of art that only consists of a feeling.” [more]

Richard Meier and On Prospect ParkThe On Prospect Park condominium has sold 52 of its 96 units, more than half of the 15-story building, according to city records, the Wall Street Journal reported. Developer Mario Procida puts the number sold at the Richard Meier-designed glass and steel tower at more than 60 percent, which means at least six more sales have yet to be recorded with the city’s Department of Finance. Construction on the condo began in 2005, and sales began in 2006. Now, after four years of sales and steep price discounts, more than a third of the building remains unsold. [more]

Nicole Kidman and 176 Perry Street

Nicole Kidman’s apartment at Richard Meier’s 176 Perry Street is on the rental market for $45,000 per month. According to city documents, the Aussie movie star purchased the 12th floor apartment in 2003 in the name of her sister, Antonia Hawley. A year later, it was reported that the star had grown dissatisfied with the $8 million home because the construction of Meier’s third tower at 165 Charles Street would impact her Hudson River views. [more]

For architecture enthusiasts looking to see famed works by starchitect
Richard Meier on a small scale, the Model Museum in Long Island City
may present the perfect opportunity. Meier, who designed the Getty
Center in Los Angeles, told Wallpaper magazine in a sit-down interview
that the center is “great for students to come so they can see what’s
involved in doing projects at this kind of scale. They come from all
over the world and are fascinated.” The museum, which is open on
Fridays by appointment only, includes models of both completed projects
and those that never materialized. “In the back there are lots of old
models of different small projects,” Meier said. “It’s interesting to
me because it gives a kind of remembrance.” [Wallpaper]

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Richard Meier, the 75-year-old starchitect known for his Modernist, glass-walled designs, didn’t mince words when speaking with the New York Times about Daniel Libeskind’s master plan for the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. Libeskind, a former student of Meier’s, competed against a team that included Meier, Steven Holl, Charlie Gwathmey and Peter Eisenman for the contract. “Look, I love Danny. But I’m not happy with the whole master plan,” Meier said. “The individual buildings, I think, may be O.K., but I just don’t think it’s as much of a public place as I would have liked to have seen.” Meanwhile, Meier said he believes sales have been picking up at the struggling condo he designed on Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, On Prospect Park. [NYT]

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After last week’s Newark City Planning Board approval of a four-block-long middle- and low-income mixed-use project, architect Richard Meier, a society mainstay in New York City, is ditching his moneyed environment and taking on a more altruistic development, an increasingly popular move in the architecture world, according to the New York Times. Meier, who will be helping lead the $120 million project, has plenty of company in his less-than-glamorous goals: Annabelle Selldorf, who spearheaded the Oak Room redesign at the Plaza, is extending her efforts to a Brooklyn recycling plant, while Michael Maltzan, who designed MoMA’s temporary home in Queens, has turned his attention in recent years toward homeless housing. [more]