So why doesn’t Richard Meier live in one of the glass-walled apartment houses he’s built in the West Village? Too much stuff. “I live in a conventional building,” he confessed at a launch party for Richard Meier & Partners: Complete Works 1963–2008. “I have too many books to move.” The architect owns a 5,000-square-foot apartment in a white-glove Upper East Side prewar, and his Long Island place is a century-old farmhouse. But his daughter lives in his Charles Street fishbowl tower, and he gets to experience his architecture on visits. “I love going to visit her—I’m happy there,” Meier said. “But, I mean, I just couldn’t deal with moving. I know where every book is. You move, you lose your place.”

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Related:

• Archive: “Intelligencer”
• Articles by Bennett Marcus
• Table of Contents: Jun 23, 2008 issue of New York | Subscribe!