The Starchitect of 2009 is…….
*Drumrolls*
Ladies and Gentlemen!
The 2009 Pritzker Prize goes to the famous Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor!
It was quite expected that this time the prize would choose him to transport him to the elite set of Architects who are Pritzker prize awardees for their contribution in Architecture, fondly called as Star-Architects or simply STARCHITECTS!
I was very happy to see an e-mail from the blog A daily dose of Architecture in my inbox today morning which had this piece of news for which I was desperately waiting for, from a long time. Last year this honor was given to Ar.John Nouvel for his fantastic contribution to Architecture.
The 2009 laureate of the Pritzker Architecture Prize is Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor.
[photo of Peter Zumthor by Gary Ebner source]
The celebrated projects by Ar.Peter Zumthor include:
- Thermal Bath Vals in Switzerland.
- Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria.
- Saint Benedict Chapel in Switzerland.
- Swiss Soundbox for EXPO 2000, Hanover, Germany.
- Coloumba Mueseum in Cologne,Germany.
- Brother Claus Field Chaple in Wachendorf, Eifel,Germany.
Peter Zumthor : Thinking Architecture(published as 2 editions one in 1999 and another in 2006 with Maureen Oberli-Turner, Catherine Schelbert as co-authors.)
In this book Peter Zumthor expresses his motivation in designing buildings that speak to our feelings and understanding in so many ways and that possess a powerful and unmistakable presence and personality.
The book is illustrated throughout with color photographs by Laura Padgett of Zumthor’s new home and studio in Haldenstein.
photo by Laura Padgett
To me, buildings can have a beautiful silence that I associate with attributes such as composure, self-evidence, durability, presence, and integrity, and with warmth and sensuousness as well; a building that is being itself, being a building, not representing anything, just being.
The sense that I try to instil into materials is beyond all rules of composition, and their tangibility, smell, and acoustic qualities are merely elements of the language we are obliged to use. Sense emerges when I succeed in bringing out the specific meanings of certain materials in my buildings, meanings that can only be perceived in just this way in this one building
When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, when I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history, and its sensuous qualities, images of other places start to invade this process of precise observation: images of places I know and that once impressed me, images of ordinary or special places places that I carry with me as inner visions of specific moods and qualities; images of architectural situations, which emanate from the world of art, or films, theater or literature.
Peter Zumthor : Atmospheres.
Atmospheres is a poetics of architecture and a window onto Peter Zumthor’s personal sources of inspiration.
In nine short, illustrated chapters framed as a process of self-observation, Peter Zumthor describes what he has on his mind as he sets about creating the atmosphere of his houses.
Images of spaces and buildings that affect him are every bit as important as particular pieces of music or books that inspire him.
From the composition and “presence” of the materials to the handling of proportions and the effect of light, this poetics of architecture enables the reader to recapitulate what really matters in the process of house design.Materials react with one another and have their radiance, so that the material composition gives rise to something unique. Material is endless.
Interiors are like large instruments, collecting sound, amplifying it, transmitting it elsewhere. That has to do with the shape peculiar to each room and with the surface of materials they contain, and the way those materials have been applied.
I believe every building has a certain temperature. We used a great deal of wood when we built the Swiss Pavilion for the Hanover World Fair. And when it was hot outside the pavilion was as cool as a forest, and when it was cool the pavilion was warmer than it was outside, although it was open to the air.
The idea of things that have nothing to do with me as an architect taking their place in a building, their rightful place – it’s a thought that gives me an insight into the future of my buildings: a future that happens without me. That does me a lot of good. It’s a great help to me to imagine the future of rooms in a house I am building, to imagine them actually in use.
Something else very special that fascinates me about architecture. A fantastic business, this. The was architecture takes a bit of the globe and constructs a tiny box of it. And suddenly there’s an interior and an exterior. Brilliant!
Thinking about daylight and artificial light I have to admit that daylight, the light on things, is so moving to me that I feel almost a spiritual quality. When the sun comes up in the morning – which I always find so marvellous, absolutely fantastic the way it comes back every morning – and casts its light on things, it doesn’t feel as if it quite belongs in this world. I don’t understand light. It gives me the feeling there’s something beyond me, something beyond all understanding. And I am very glad, very grateful that there is such a thing.
Peter Zumthor has described what really constitutes an architectural atmosphere as
“this singular density and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being, harmony, beauty…under whose spell I experience what I otherwise would not experience in precisely this way.”
Source of the two books – Amazon.com
Good Read : The NY Times about Ar. Peter Zumthor.
Happy Reading!
Cheers!
