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Peter Zumthor, Pritzker 2009 Laureate

By David Basulto — Filed under: Architects , Awards , ,
 

The Pritzker Prize, nobel-equivalent for architecture, laureate for 2009 has just been announced, and it seems that our readers got it right this time as you can see on our poll.

This year the prize goes to Swiss architect Peter Zumthor (1943). A real “master”, Zumthor has always been a craftsman on architecture, focusing on the atmosphere and details of his  works, taking all the time he needs  (often several years) at the Swiss mountains to deliver  timeless buildings: Brother Klaus Field Chapel, Kolumba Art Museum, Swiss Pavillion Expo Hannover, Therm Vals, and more.

“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.”

Peter Zumthor – Thinking Architecture

The ceremony will take place on May 29th in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In a few moments we will feature some of his works in a separate article.

 

42 comments »

NM says:

YES!

 
# April 12, 2009 at 14:55
Mimar says:

thanks you

 
# April 12, 2009 at 15:01
pedja says:

hip hip huray :)

 
# April 12, 2009 at 15:11
Ieva says:

Congratulations!

 
# April 12, 2009 at 15:14
sisifo says:

nice… congrats to master zumthor.

i think the next should go to toyo ito…

 
# April 12, 2009 at 15:50
vin says:

He is the one and only.

 
# April 12, 2009 at 15:55
Franco says:

Kunsthaus rules!

 
# April 12, 2009 at 16:26

Images of the Kolumba and the Bruder Klaus chapel: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cisar/collections/72157616667748016/

 
# April 12, 2009 at 17:08
archdork says:

bow to the master!

 
# April 12, 2009 at 19:29
ge_de says:

completely deserved!

 
# April 12, 2009 at 19:52
innervito says:

yes!

 
# April 12, 2009 at 20:02
innervito says:

He is worthy to be praised

 
# April 12, 2009 at 20:10
ArchDivision says:

as deserving a laureate as any. congrats mr. zumthor!!

 
# April 12, 2009 at 20:13
scarpasez says:

I join in the throng of praise: Zumthor is a true master and an inspiration.

 
# April 12, 2009 at 20:35
tanichi says:

众望所归!

 
# April 12, 2009 at 21:59
z says:

At last at last

 
# April 13, 2009 at 00:04
julladit says:

สุดยอดครับ!!

 
# April 13, 2009 at 10:11
profano says:

Why did Zumthor studied at Cooper Union???

:)

 
# April 13, 2009 at 11:22
HenryE says:

Günther Domenig, Klaus Kada, Wolf Prix or Günter Behnisch are better architects !

 
# April 13, 2009 at 11:55
iAn says:

哈哈,finally…
will eisenman be the next?
:)

 
# April 13, 2009 at 12:12
tatomillanta says:

como diria otro maestro
GRACIAS TOTALES
Por fin

 
# April 13, 2009 at 13:50
flip says:

“the finest one.”

 
# April 13, 2009 at 18:56
... says:

grande zumthor

 
# April 13, 2009 at 19:20
Vlad says:

I love this project (Thermal Baths @ Vals) – Awesome !
http://www.flickr.com/photos/306/2102609389/

 
# April 14, 2009 at 02:15
jiri says:

Gratulations!
Seems to be end of Zaha Hadid time.

 
# April 14, 2009 at 05:49
flip says:

profano,

zumthor is not from cooper union, he studied architecture at pratt institure for a year only.. this is the end of commercial driven starchitects..

 
# April 14, 2009 at 19:27
Ultraman says:

At last Zumthor gets his prize, so then all the heideggerian-archiTollah would stop complaining about the blob or pop-architecture !!!!

Every 5 or 6 years the Pritzker prize is attributed to an overblowned, overrated Starchitect. One of them was Glenn Murcutt, architect for Left-wing Chardonnay, bohemian-bourgeois, quickly forgotten and an object of jokes amongst australian architects (”touching lightly the earth”).

Now has come the time for Zumthor, time of crisis, time of puritan masochism, greenies, and neo-con architects, all fearing eco-terrorism, and preaching for a return to the so-called fundamentals of architecture, the lost paradise of pure architecture. Sounds like Adolf and his vegan regime.

Nostalgia is a weapon.

Bon allez, on va donner a Zumthor son Pritzker prize, le prix qui revient automatiquement a tous les architectes sur-mediatises (a quoi bon s’en priver, tout le monde y passera, faut juste etre patient).
Comme ca les retardataires, les fans de Jose Bove, les fans du Corb et les autres, ceux qui ne savent pas aller au dela de 3000 sqm de surface constructible vont etre content, et surtout vont enfin fermer leure gueule.
C’est ca qui est bien avec ce prix, tout aussi ridicule que le prix Nobel, on vous le donne et vous pouvez vous la fermer pour toujours. On entendra plus le Suisse monomanique nous reciter son marketing sentant bon la montagne, les forets vertes, et le pin, la proprete suisse facon “lounge”. Il y avait l’easy-listening, avec Zumthor, c’est
“l’Easy-Architecture”, pour gauchiste alter ou droitiste fondamentaliste. Zunthor unifie les bords, il plait aux Bobos et aux Faschos, c’est un miracle !!!
On va quand meme y avoir droit cette annee a sa diarhee, les fondamentaux de la matiere, l’essence de l’ARCHITECTURE (wow), tout le truc qui font bander les Heideggeriens de l’archi. Ca y est, ils l’ont enfin leur revanche, a bas le blob, vive la crise, les alpages, les cerceuils en pins et les chappelles pour bouddhistes suisses. Je sens les urbains nous faire un coup de nostlagie, ils cupabilisent, c’est la crise, alors on va mettre le vieux Zumthor sur un plateau, et la on va sauver notre conscience, ca y’est l’architecture a trouver sa voix pour les 10 prochaines annees, en arriere toute, retour au source, soyez annal, mais avec des etrons en calcaires, en strattes, en couche, Joceline !!! Et vous me ferrez des belles vues cadrees sur la vallee !

 
# April 14, 2009 at 21:00
knulp says:

such a shame he won it and not brad pitt!

 
# April 15, 2009 at 02:11
pollex says:

bravo!

 
# April 15, 2009 at 03:36
titi says:

Ultraman = Ricciotti?? En tout cas, le style y est!

 
# April 15, 2009 at 03:49
Ultraman says:

Mon pauvre titi, faut vraiment que tu sortes de ta petite France. Il n’y a pas que le faux Che Francais, le rebel meditheraneen de service dans le triste monde etrique de l’architecture francophone.

Pas besoin d’etre Ricciotti pour ecrire des evidences pareilles.

Zumthor n’a rien construit depuis bientot 5 ans, il faut bien qu’on l’acheve par le baiser de la mort. Lis les commentaires foireux de tous les anglophones, ils bavent, leure idole se fait sacrer par le club le plus con de la terre.
Et lui il devient le fer de lance du mouvement le plus inquietant de l’histoire de l’architecture, le retour a l’identite fixe, la fin de l’ambiguite venturienne, le rejet du less is bore, le rejet sans ambuiguite du junk, la soi disant purete raciale des formes primaires contre le dynamisme des formes scriptee et a programe evolutif. Nous voici revenu a un Paladio, mais pour bobo new-age, masochiste et monacal. On va pas s’amuser dans les prochains mois, on va avoir droit a toute la gamme sur l’essence et tout le tralala heiddegerien en reader’s digest pour architecte…

 
# April 15, 2009 at 10:46
flip says:

ultraman,

in english man..

 
# April 16, 2009 at 05:19
Ultra man says:

Ok for the anglos:

_This prize is the KISS OF DEATH, Zumthor hasn’t built anything interesting since 5-6 years, so it will definitively shut the mouth of all of you who are impressed by his very local and sublimely oppressive architecture. It sounds as well like we will not hear from him ever, like for Glenn Murcutt and Portzamparc, they just stop being interesting after their Pritzker prizes.

_in the next months, we will have a strong and heavy marketing shower with key words like: essence, Heidegger, fundamental and other blabla smelling like a mix of new-age architecture and ecolo-PC diarrhea for Swiss Buddhist.

_So for a while it’s going to sound like the end of venturian ambiguity, junk(Koolhaas)irony, deflation of the blob, and blindness to all the parametric architecture (THE revolution hitting hard the construction world at the moment). It’s going to be reassuring, for all the architects that have an allergy to Zaha, UN-studio, and AA kids.

 
# April 16, 2009 at 20:00
NM says:

Ultraman, very intolerant opinions there, certainly the construction is the frontier in terms of innovation, but where do you think the architecture should be heading? (as if there is or should ever be, one clear direction?) why is there no place for Zumthor in your world?

 
# April 16, 2009 at 20:18
Franco says:

Eisenman will never win the Pritzker Prize. His time has gone.

 
# April 17, 2009 at 06:59
lex says:

Zumthor deserved this price,
The strange thing about zumthor is that i still didn’t find a good book about him. Maybe he doesn’t like to be published…

(ultraman, je pense que t’ as besoin d’une copine…)

 
# April 17, 2009 at 09:09
Ultra man says:

@ NM, I never said there was no place for Zumthor in the world. Architecture is multiple, local and global, S,M,L,XL,XXl, but it doesn’t seem like it for a lot of Zumthor zealots. We have witness the amazing intolerance and frustration amongst architects that are unwilling to even think outside of their intellectual boundaries. Then how can’t we not question the fanatical call to eradicate everything which is not Zumthor like, in the name of PURE architecture? Doesn’t it sound like intolerance to you?

Reponse a Lex, qui te dit que je suis un homme ?
Il faudrait sincerement questionner ce deversement d’intolerance envers les recents progrets independants du BTP et du monde de la constrution standard, mais produit par des architectes tout aussi interressant que Zumthor. Il y a quelque chose de profondement inquietant a vouloir faire croire qu’il n’y a qu’un seul salut pour l’architecture. Qu’un seul architecte.

Nous vivons dans un monde publicitaire, et Zumthor n’y echappe pas, il est juste dans le creneau pepere des architectes sentant bon le terroir, c’est rassurant en temps de crise. Nous voila maintenant dans un pur moment de monopole mediatique, markete par et pour les libraires et la presse architecturale.

Il faut remettre Zumthor a son echelle, je n’ai aucunement vu dans son oeuvre une pertinence en ce qui concerne les problemes urbains actuels, ni non plus de reponses autres que locales a l’Europe et principalement les Alpes.
Mais au dela de cette critique c’est avant tout la reaction proprement comique de ces fans, tout imbus de pretentions et d’arrogance qui prete a rire…

Bien sur que Zumthor merite son prix, mais merite il pour autant une foule d’architectes si intolerants et limites ?

Mon cher Lex, tu trouveras un excellent documentaire sur les
thermes de Vals ici:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7v-wozHSO8

 
# April 19, 2009 at 20:49
flip says:

lex, zumthor doesnt want his books to be re-published.. we need to see the actual buildings..

 
# April 19, 2009 at 23:40
Carlos Almeida says:

Mr. or Ms. Ultraman -I respect your opinions but allow me to suggest to you, before all of those comments about Zumthor, to read carefully the citation from the Pritzker Jury and acknowledge the names of its members. After that we can debate architecture – unless you already read it -, in its essence and if its core is measured by zealots of any kind or diminishing work of certain architects because of the numbers of buildings they have built or for that matter, their size. This said, I don’t understand what do you mean by architecture as global, local and multiple. Also what is fanatical about Zumthor and his intolerance. I’d appreciate if you could clarify that for me in order to understand.

As a side note, i have some trouble to understand the intolerance from an architect that for some good years has dedicated his practice to historic preservation and strict respect for sites in which his building are built.

Thank you.

 
# June 2, 2009 at 02:36
    qaA says:

    i agree with you

    totally

    you must be tolerant if you want to do architecture dedicating it to historic preservation and stric respect with context

     
    # September 2, 2009 at 15:15

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