Why To Revoke Meier's Award

摘要

The Pritzker Prize organization has told the New York Times that it doesn't delve into its laureates' personal lives even though it considers sexual harassment and abuse serious matters. The organization has an opportunity now to reconsider and to accomplish as much as any award that honors excellence in architecture. It can followthe example set by other organizations that have revoked awards over sexual harassment and revoke the Pritzker Prize presented to the architect Richard Meier in 1984. The American Institute of Architects ought to take a similar path with the Gold Medal it awarded Meier in 1997.A good start for theThe Hyatt Foundation,which created the PritzkerArchitecture Prize in1979, would be to conductan investigation of Meier'salleged offenses, first revealed by the New York Times. That investigation need not be as exhaustive as the one that recently led to the exit of conductor James Levine from his role as director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The opera's law firm, Proskauer & Rose, interviewed 70 people before showing its evidence to the opera's directors. That kind of long, costly probe is more appropriate for an employer.