Peter Zumthor (1943 – Present)
The 2009 Pritzker architecture prize winner was born in Basel, Switzerland. The son of a cabinet maker, he is not a celebrity architect, not one of the names that show up on shortlists for museums and concert hall projects or known beyond architecture circles. He hasn’t designed many buildings; the one he is best known for is a thermal spa in an Alpine commune. And he has toiled in relative obscurity for the last 30 years in a remote village in the Swiss mountains.
He is often praised for the detailed craftsmanship of his designs. His buildings do not share a common vernacular. They range from tall and circular to low-slung and boxy. For his Field Chapel to St. Nikolaus von der Flüe, completed in 2007, in Mechernich, Germany, he formed the interior from 112 tree trunks configured like a tent. Over 24 days, layers of concrete were poured around the structure. Then for three weeks a fire was kept burning inside so that the dried tree trunks could be easily removed from the concrete shell. The chapel floor was covered with lead, which was melted on site and manually ladled onto the floor. For an art museum in Bregenz, Austria — a four-story cube of concrete, steel and glass that opened in 1997 — he used glass walls that at night can become giant billboards or video screens. His Kolumba Art Museum in Cologne, Germany, completed in 2007, rises out of the ruins of the Gothic St. Kolumba Church, destroyed in World War II.
Peter Zumthor lives quietly in the remote village of Haldenstein in the Swiss mountains. His buildings are found mainly in Europe.
Notable Buildings:
1986: Protective Housing for Roman Archeological Excavations, Chur, Switzerland
1988: Saint Benedict Chapel, Graubünden, Switzerland
1990: Art Museum, Chur, Switzerland
1993: Homes for Senior Citizens, Chur, Switzerland
1996: Thermal Baths Vals, Vals, Switzerland
1997: Kunsthaus (Art Museum), Bregenz, Austria
2000: Swiss Pavilion, Expo 2000, Hannover, Germany
2001: Harjunkulma Apartment Building, Jyväskylä, Finland
2007: Saint Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, Mechernich, Germany
2007: Memorial Site to the Burning of Witches
