urbArAmA’s Blog

For now, maybe all of us already know that architect Peter Zumthor won the Pritzker Architecture Prize 2009.

The photos of the project we’re publishing now at urbArAmA about Zumthor’s work do not represent a complete catalogue of the Laureate’s work, but rather a small sampling. All photographs are accompanied by descriptive comments in Peter Zumthor’s own words of the projects shown.

Although most of his work is in Switzerland, he has designed projects in Germany, Austria, The Netherlands, England, Spain, Norway, Finland and the United States. His most
famous work is in Vals, Switzerland — the Thermal Baths, which has been referred to by the press as “his masterpiece.” Most recently critics have praised his Field Chapel to Saint
Nikolaus von der Flüe near Cologne, Germany. The jury singled out not only those buildings, but also the Kolumba Museum in Cologne, calling the latter “a startling contemporary work, but also one that is completely at ease with its many layers of history.”

In Zumthor’s own words as expressed in his book, Thinking Architecture, “I believe that architecture today needs to reflect on the tasks and possibilities which are inherently its own. Architecture is not a vehicle or a symbol for things that do not belong to its essence. In a society that celebrates the inessential, architecture can put up a resistance, counteract the waste of forms and meanings, and speak its own language. I believe that the language of architecture is not a question of a specific style. Every building is built for a specific use in a specific place and for a specific society. My buildings try to answer the questions that emerge from these simple facts as precisely and critically as they can.”

You can see all the material that The Pritzker Architecture Prize kindly share with us here, at urbArAmA