Peter Zumthor Takes the Prize
I'm fairly certain that most of you reading today's post have never heard of Swiss architect
Peter Zumthor. But, in architectural circles he is very well known for his minimalist aesthetic and for being something of a recluse.
archaeology, andrewpaulcarr via flickr; Kolumba, exterior courtyard and Gothic wall remnant, Demarmels via flickr;
Artwork: designslinger]
Zumthor's desire to shun the limelight will be tested this week since he has been named
the recipient of the 2009 Pritzker Prize, which is the architectural profession's Nobel Prize. As the award citation reads:
"In paring down architecture to its barest yet most sumptuous essentials, he has reaffirmed
architecture's indispensable place in a fragile world."
That fragility can be seen in his museum project in Cologne, Germany. The city was pretty
much a pile of rubble after extensive Allied bombing raids at the end of the Second World War. One of the casualties was the St. Kolumba parish church. The church's Gothic ruins covered a site dating back to the Roman and Medieval eras, and Zumthor was asked to design a building encompassing the remnants of those periods into a new, modern museum facility for the Archdiocese of Cologne. His Kolumba Art Museum enclosed the site in unobtrusive, grey stone and concrete. The scale, lack of decoration and subdued use of light in the new building, left the contemplative mood of the original site intact.
One of his more popular projects, Therme Vals, is a building Zumthor designed in his home
canton in Switzerland. Constructed over a thermal spring, the structure is primarily built of thin slabs of local stone that Zumthor felt best expressed the nature of the site, which is set in a mountain side. The baths evoke the same feeling found in the Kolumba Museum; quiet, reflective and peaceful.
Zumthor may have shunned the limelight during his career but those days are probably
over for the next few weeks anyway. However, at the age of 65, I highly doubt the prize will have much of an affect on his philosophy about design. As he told Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin, the award is, "a vindication of his unusual career path" and that it holds lessons for young architects,
"I would hope that it would teach them that you can carefully do your thing ...
that you don't have to do what other people expect of you."
Posted by designslinger at 4/14/2009 4:15 AM 
Categories: Architecture, Architects
Tags: Pritzker Prize 2009 Therme Vals Peter Zumthor Kunsthaus Bregenz Kolumba Art Museum
Categories: Architecture, Architects
Tags: Pritzker Prize 2009 Therme Vals Peter Zumthor Kunsthaus Bregenz Kolumba Art Museum
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