Peter Zumthor: The Latest Architecture and News

The Pritzker Prize is the most important award in the field of architecture, awarded to a living architect whose built work "has produced consistent and significant contributions to humanity through the art of architecture." The Prize rewards individuals, not entire offices, as took place in 2000 (when the jury selected Rem Koolhaas instead of his firm OMA) or in 2016 (with Alejandro Aravena selected instead of Elemental); however, the prize can also be awarded to multiple individuals working together, as took place in 2001 (Herzog & de Meuron), 2010 (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA), and 2017 (Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, and Ramon Vilalta of RCR Arquitectes).

This year, architecture’s highest honor, the Pritzker Prize, has been granted to Grafton Architects, a Dublin-based architectural firm mainly ran by female partners Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. For the first time ever in its 42-year history, due to the constraints set by Covid-19 global pandemic, the organizers of the Pritzker Prize decided to use Livestream the award ceremony. Having reached the end of 2020, ArchDaily has summed up what current and previous Pritzker Prize winners have accomplished during this turbulent year.

Conducted by The Citizens’ Brigade to Save LACMA, a recent poll revealed that only 5% approve of the current Peter Zumthor-designed scheme for a new LACMA, 50% Support the renovation of the existing buildings, and 85% favor encyclopedic collection in one location. The public survey also highlighted 3 designs selected out of the shortlisted six proposals of the “LACMA Not LackMA” competition.

Known for his sensuous materiality and attention to place, 2009 Pritzker Laureate Peter Zumthor (born April 26, 1943) is one the most revered architects of the 21st century. Shooting to fame on the back of The Therme Vals and Kunsthaus Bregenz, completed just a year apart in 1996 and 1997, his work privileges the experiential qualities of individual buildings over the technological, cultural and theoretical focus often favored by his contemporaries.

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Architecture has deep wells of research, thought, and theory that are unseen on the surface of a structure. For practitioners, citizens interested, and students alike, books on architecture offer invaluable context to the profession, be it practical, inspirational, academic, or otherwise. So, for those of you looking to expand your bookshelf (or confirm your own tastes), ArchDaily has gathered a broad list of architectural books that we consider of interest to those in the field.

In compiling this list, we sought out titles from different backgrounds with the aim of revealing divergent cultural contexts. From essays to monographs, urban theory to graphic novels, each of the following either engage directly with or flirt on the edges of architecture.

The books on this list were chosen by our editors, and are categorized loosely by type. Read on to see the books we consider valuable to anyone interested in architecture | Last updated in December 2019.

Part of a bigger vision and a master plan by Peter Zumthor, Studio Akkerhuis’ new 55.000 square meter project in Leiden’s 19th-century flour mill complex is under construction. With a landscape by Piet Oudolf and Lola, the development that recently won the "Future Project - Commercial Mixed Use” at WAF, will include shops, galleries, apartments, workspaces, a hotel, and a spa.

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For Paul Lewis, Marc Tsurumaki and David J. Lewis, the section “is often understood as a reductive drawing type, produced at the end of the design process to depict structural and material conditions in service of the construction contract.” A definition that will be familiar to most of those who have studied or worked in architecture at some point. We often think primarily of the plan, for it allows us to embrace the programmatic expectations of a project and provide a summary of the various functions required. In the modern age, digital modelling software programs offer ever more possibilities when it comes to creating complex three dimensional objects, making the section even more of an afterthought.

With their Manual of Section (2016), the three founding partners of LTL architects engage with section as an essential tool of architectural design, and let’s admit it, this reading might change your mind on the topic. For the co-authors, “thinking and designing through section requires the building of a discourse about section, recognizing it as a site of intervention.” Perhaps, indeed, we need to understand the capabilities of section drawings both to use them more efficiently and to enjoy doing so.

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Peter Zumthor has gained approval for a paired-back design for the LACMA expansion in Los Angeles. The proposal for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was part of a final environmental impact report submitted for the $650-million project. Undergoing a series of changes over previous years, the latest design will still branch over Wilshire Boulevard with amorphous, sand-colored concrete galleries. The new expansion plan reduces both the expansion's size and footprint.

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The Royal Institute of British Architects have announced fourteen buildings shortlisted from 48 entries for this year's RIBA South West Awards. The work includes six projects are by new and established practices based in the South West, as well as a series of new and reconfigured houses. All shortlisted buildings will be assessed by a regional jury with the winning buildings announced at an awards ceremony this May.

Alain de Botton’s Living Architecture project - a joyful, democratically-minded concept to share quality architecture in the UK - was borne out of personal crisis. The Swiss-born philosopher and author gained fame in both popular and architectural circles following the release of his book, "The Architecture of Happiness."

The book was immediately successful (movie buffs may recall its brief cameo in the 2009 film 500 Days of Summer), but the response unsettled Botton. “...However pleasing it is two write a book about an issue one feels passionately about," he explained to Assemble Papers, "the truth is that - a few exceptions aside - books don’t change anything. I realized that if I cared so much about architecture, writing was a coward’s way out; the real challenge was to build.”

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Living Architecture has published photographs of the Peter Zumthor-designed “Secular Retreat” as it nears completion in Chivelstone, Devon. The retreat will be the Pritzker Prize-winning architect’s first permanent building in the UK.

The dramatic, layered concrete and glass retreat is the seventh commission in the Living Architecture series, “designed by leading artists and architects in distinctive, unique sites across England.

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Peter Zumthor's quiet, technically pristine, and beautifully detailed work has long been an inspiration for architects. His Kolumba Museum, located in Cologne, Germany, a city that was almost completely destroyed in World War II, houses the Roman Catholic Archdiocese’s collection of art which spans more than a thousand years. Zumthor’s design delicately rises from the ruins of a late-Gothic church, respecting the site’s history and preserving its essence.

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