Swiss Architect Zumthor Wins Pritzker Prize

  posted by admin 12 April 2009

Perhaps the project most closely associated with the architect is the spa he designed at the Hotel Therme in the Alpine village of Vals, Switzerland, which was completed in 1996. Using slabs of quartzite stone that evoke stacked Roman bricks, Mr. Zumthor created a contemporary take on a the baths of antiquity. The Pritzker jury praised Mr. Zumthors use of materials. In Zumthor’s skillful hands, like those of the consummate craftsman, materials from cedar shingles to sandblasted glass are used in a way that celebrates their own unique qualities, all in the service of an architecture of permanence, the citation said, adding, In paring down architecture to its barest yet most sumptuous essentials, he has reaffirmed architectures indispensable place in a fragile world. NY Times