World-renowned architect Richard Meier '56, B.Arch. '57, is returning to Cornell's campus -- not just for his 50th reunion or to view the progress of his landmark campus building, but for the premier of a video -- "Big Red to Meier White: A Cornell Story" -- celebrating his lifelong connections to Cornell.

Meier, the designer of Cornell's Life Sciences Technology Building, now under construction, will deliver remarks following the screening of the video Friday, June 9, from 11 to 11:45 a.m. in the Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts' Kiplinger Theatre. He also will give a talk in Sibley Hall's John Hartell Gallery at 1:30 p.m. that day on the gallery's exhibition of his designs. Both events are free and open to the public.

Meier started his own architectural firm at age 29; at 49 he became the youngest architect to win the Pritzker Architecture Prize for his powerful yet simple contemporary building designs. The international prize is architecture's highest honor.

But Cornell's influence on Meier's life and work hasn't been recognized -- until now. "People will be surprised to learn there's a large Cornell story about him, a rich vein that has run through his career," said videographer Phil Handler '62, B.Arch. '64, who, with his wife, Maddy Gell Handler '65, spent more than a year making the 35-minute video in honor of Meier's reunion. The video is the 41st in a series on College of Architecture, Art and Planning (AAP) graduates produced by the Handlers and donated by them to Cornell University Archives and AAP's Fine Arts Library and Visual Resources Facility.

"He has stayed in contact with so many people connected with Cornell that the video became a Cornell memory piece," said Maddy Handler. The video looks at the architect's enduring Cornell friendships, she said, including one with Arch Dotson, professor emeritus of government, who died this April. Dotson was adviser to Meier's Cornell fraternity, Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT), where the two became friends. Later, the architect designed a house for Dotson and his family in Ithaca.

The video reveals why Meier chose Cornell and what his experiences on campus were like. It also shows some of his early professional designs and explores Meier's role in the New York Five, an influential group of architects that included AAP graduate Peter Eisenman -- the subject of an earlier Handler video. It ends with a portfolio of images of the Getty Center, north of Los Angeles, considered Meier's most prominent building design. The film is dedicated to Dotson and to Marc Meshorer '56, Meier's college roommate and lifelong friend, who died in 1991.

Locating Meier's friends and such details as the Ithaca apartment where he and Meshorer lived for three years while at Cornell and a cabin in the woods in Varna, N.Y., where Meier lived during his fifth year, "became my quest," said Maddy Handler. Among those interviewed are Dotson and his wife, Esther; Donald Greenberg '55, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Graphics, director of the Program of Computer Graphics at Cornell, and another subject of a Handler video; and six other architecture classmates and ZBT brothers.

"This is what the core of Reunion should be," said Phil Handler, "reconnecting and re-solidifying the Cornell experience."

"We really believe in [this series of videos]," said Maddy Handler. "We think what happened in the history of this college is so important. People relish the memories, the connection, the recollection."

Ernie Stern '56, president of the Class of 1956, will introduce the video, and Judy Frankel Woodfin '56, another longtime friend of Meier's, will introduce the architect.