5 women accuse famed architect of sexual harassment

In January, Richard Meier, the celebrated architect and Pritzker Prize winner who designed the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, established a graduate scholarship at his alma mater, Cornell University’s architecture school. Intended to honor the 55th anniversary of his practice, the scholarship was designed to “recruit and retain the most talented women applicants.”

But four women who have worked for Meier — and another who encountered him on another project — have described encounters when the architect, now 83, was, in fact, not good to women.

Two of the women have described incidents over the past 10 years in which they were sent to Meier’s New York apartment, where he exposed himself, according to interviews with one of the women and several former employees of the firm.

A third woman said that Meier grabbed her underwear through her dress at a firm holiday party, and a fourth said he asked her to undress at his apartment so she could be photographed.

A fifth woman, who did not work for the firm, described an incident with Meier in Los Angeles in the 1980s, when she said she had to flee his home after he forcefully pulled her onto a bed.

Confronted with these allegations, Meier said he would take a six-month leave as founder and managing partner of his firm and issued this statement: “I am deeply troubled and embarrassed by the accounts of several women who were offended by my words and actions. While our recollections may differ, I sincerely apologize to anyone who was offended by my behavior.”

In 2009, during her first week as Meier’s assistant, Laura Trimble Elbogen, 24, said that the architect, who was then 75, invited her to his apartment to celebrate her new job. When she arrived, she said, he offered her a glass of wine, showed her photographs of naked women he had taken and then asked her to undress.

She declined, left the apartment and said nothing because, she said, she was too intimidated and worried about holding her job.

Management also heard from Alexis Zamlich, a 22-year-old communications assistant, who reported that Meier exposed himself during her visit to his apartment that same year. Zamlich is said to have received a $150,000 legal settlement that required the firm to hold sexual harassment training.