The Pritzker Architecture Prize

April 17, 2009

It was interesting to read this week that Swiss architect Peter Zumthor won the Pritzker Prize, bestowed to an architect annually by Chicago's billionaire Pritzker family for "significant contributions to humanity. Like many people, I didn’t know much about Zumthor before this week but a quick look at his work is making me a big fan. His work is very modern yet uses many historical references to complete its form and feel. One project in particular, an art museum in Cologne, Germany, which beautifully incorporates the ruins of a Gothic church destroyed by Allied bombs during World War II, is literally among the most ingenious meshing of the old and the new that I have ever seen.

A couple more of Zumthor’s other projects, a tiny field chapel in the German countryside whose interior walls are formed with tree trunks and a popular thermal bath house built with thin stone cut from a local quarry in his hometown of Graubunden are equally alluring.

But, as a small business owner in a world of giant retailers maybe the thing that makes me like Zumthor the most is his ability to quietly focus on doing great work even if he runs only a small firm and generally takes a hands-on approach to small scale projects.

"I would hope that it would teach young architects that you can carefully do your thing ... that you don't have to do what other people expect of you," said Zumthor.

Congratulations and thank you, Mr. Zumthor—I am inspired!