The Atheneum in New Harmony, Indiana serves as a visitation starting point to this important utopian settlement. River and vehicular visitors' paths converge to set up a universal experience of the pocelin box of grids placed upon an earthen plinth in protection from yearly floods. The building is an object, apart from the historic town in distance and character, whose spatial experiences explore the relationship between architecture and society as the town it reveals once attempted.

— Darlene Levy. drawn from Richard Meier. Richard Meier: Architect 1964-1984. p191.

The Creator's Words

"My rigor also is a search for clarity.This search, for me, begins with the plan. The plan, which seems to have been neglected of late, is in fact the key. The two-dimensional image contains within it the instructions for the three-dimensional object that is the building. Together with the section, it generates the building. While the elevation tends to pictorialize, the plan and the section speak to the architect about spatial ideas. But, of the two, the plan is the most convincing and fundamental expression of architectural ideas. I do believe that buildings should speak. In my work, the use of a specific and internally consistent vocabulary of elements and themes over the years has allowed me a coherent, evolutionary means of expression."

— Richard Meier. from Eliot Noyes. On Architecture: Lecture by Richard Meier. p2.

Details

Porcelain-enameled cladding panels are 2'-" square.15,000 square feetsteel frame faced with 2'6" square porceline-enameled panels