About Peter Zumthor: Peter Zumthor is a Swiss architect and winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize and 2013 RIBA Royal Gold Medal.
My buildings should have an emotional core - a space which, in itself, has an emotional nice feeling.
I grew up in a craftsman's home, where things were done with our own hands. I did cabinetmaking for four years and I hated it.
I can't be bought with money. If someone calls me and asks me to work for them for three or four years, and they'll pay me well to build their vacation home, I ask myself why I should work three or four years on something like that.
If I look at history, it seems that most wars and most cruel things have been done by men and not by women.
I design for the use of a building and the place and for the people who use it... the reputation for arrogance comes because when work is offered to me, I look whether I can find a genuine interest in quality.
Designing is a matter of concentration. You go deep into what you want to do. It's about intensive research, really. The concentration is warm and intimate and like the fire inside the earth - intense but not distorted. You can go to a place, really ...
When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history and its sensuous qualities.
Small museums are great. Big museums are a drag.
Every time I imagine a garden in an architectural setting, it turns into a magical place. I think of gardens I have seen, that I believe I have seen, that I long to see, surrounded by simple walls, columns, arcades or the facades of buildings - shelt...
I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It's not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.
My relationship to plants becomes closer and closer. They make me quiet; I like to be in their company.
I work anywhere between three and 10 years on a project, depending on the size. My lifetime is finite. Therefore, I have to look carefully at how many projects I want to put into my lifetime.
