Peter Zumthor
Peter Zumthor
Peter Zumthoris a Swiss architect whose work is frequently described as uncompromising and minimalist. Though managing a relatively small firm, he is the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize and 2013 RIBA Royal Gold Medal...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionArchitect
Date of Birth26 April 1943
CountrySwitzerland
glasses house skins
You feel a certain way in a glass or concrete or limestone building. It has an effect on your skin - the same with plywood or veneer, or solid timber. Wood doesn't steal energy from your body the way glass and concrete steal heat. When it's hot, a wood house feels cooler than a concrete one, and when it's cold, the other way around.
past quality body
Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to past life.
past flow gaps
Presence is like a gap in the flow of history, where all of [a] sudden it is not past and not future.
beautiful heart fire
Designing is a matter of concentration. You go deep into what you want to do. It's about intensive research, really. The concentration is warm and intimate and like the fire inside the earth - intense but not distorted. You can go to a place, really feel it in your heart. It's actually a beautiful feeling.
thinking age scratches
I am convinced that a good building must be capable of absorbing the traces of human life and taking on a specific richness... I think of the patina of age on materials, of innumerable small scratches on surfaces, of varnish that has grown dull and brittle, and of edges polished by use.
real rain light
If you're lucky, and a building succeeds, the real product has many more dimensions than you can ever imagine. You have the sun, the light, the rain, the birds, the feel.
nice emotional should-have
My buildings should have an emotional core –a space which, in itself, has an emotional nice feeling.
sleep thinking silence
Architecture has its own realm. It has a special physical relationship with life. I do not think of it primarily as either a message or symbol, but as an envelope and background for life which goes on in and around it, a sensitive container for the rhythm of footsteps on the floor, for the concentration of work, for the silence of sleep.
architecture form
Architecture is not about form
passion thinking creating
I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It's not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.
thinking order design
In order to design buildings with a sensuous connection to life, one must think in a way that goes far beyond form and construction.
believe ideas space
When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material. I believe architecture is about that. It's not about paper, it's not about forms. It's about space and material.
memories essence feelings
In a fragment of a second you can understand: Things you know, things you don’t know, things you don’t know that you don’t know, conscious, unconscious, things which in a fragrant of a second you can react to: we can all imagine why this capacity was given to us as human beings - I guess to survive. Architecture to me has the same kind of capacity. It takes longer to capture, but the essence to me is the same. I call this atmosphere. When you experience a building and it gets to you. It sticks in your memory and your feelings. I guess thats what I am trying to do.
goodbye world architecture
I've said goodbye to the overworked notion that architecture has to save the world.