[ cover story] Hearth & Soul… An Architect Appreciated Pritzker Prize 2009 2009 Pritzker Jury Panel Lord Palumbo – Chairman Alejandro Aravena Shigeru Ban Rolf Fehlbaum Carlos Jimenez Juhani Pallasmaa Renzo Piano Karen Stein Martha Thorne Presented in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 29 May The jury for the Pritzker Prize this year made an intriguing choice in Peter Zumthor, thought of by many as a singular talent, and an ‘architect’s architect’. Like the 2002 laureate, Glenn Murcutt, and unlike such others as Jean Nouvel or Zaha Hadid, Zumthor goes to some lengths to avoid the limelight, carving out a peculiar and, to many, an enviable niche as an individualistic practitioner thriving on the fringes of the building professions. He realises very few projects, takes whatever amount of time he feels is appropriate on the design process, and obsesses about the details… and everything else. Those who have visited his buildings virtually always remark on their thoroughness, on their absolute consistency and depth of thought. With his miniscule practice of 15 or so staff, tucked far off the beaten track in rural Switzerland, Zumthor lives the professional life many dream of – a kind of romantic fantasy of the genius artist living in his ivory tower, with a queue of wishful clients waiting patiently at its base. Romantic or not, this is rather close to reality with Zumthor… he turns down more work than he accepts, lives and practises in an idyllic mountain redoubt (in a superb building of his own creation) and works to an unusual degree on his own terms – to which his clients willingly agree (they have little choice). What about this practice is not to envy? hinge 167_47 But what are we to make of the work itself? The Pritzker jury cited a couple of his most famous buildings, including the Kolumba Museum in Cologne, which it called, “a startling contemporary work, but also one that is completely at ease with its many layers of history”. Indeed, it might be said that Zumthor is oddly capable of creating a formal language that is separated, if not divorced, from time. Unquestionably contemporary, his architecture seems somehow disconnected with the entirety of whatever the current ‘discussion’ is centred on, as if occupying a parallel context of formal thinking, one perhaps accessible only to Zumthor himself, or at maximum a handful of aficionados fortunate enough to ‘get it’. This obviously doesn’t square with the deep and widely held respect he commands (or indeed with winning a Pritzker Prize!), but it is precisely this apparent contradiction that fascinates the critical world. It is likely the man himself would scoff at such ponderings: his buildings are built for himself and for those who use them, not for critics, and by all accounts they are embraced profoundly as such. Is this quality Photography by Walter Mair and Pietro Savorelli Photography by Walter Thomas J Pritzker: Brother Claus Field Chapel Wachendorf, Germany “A master architect admired by his 2007 The chapel, dedicated to a Swiss Saint, and commissioned and largely constructed by a farmer and his wife, is located colleagues for work that is focussed, on one of their fields above the village. The interior of the chapel room is formed out of 112 tree trunks, configured like uncompromising and exceptionally a tent. Layer after layer of concrete, each layer 50cm thick, was poured and rammed around the tent-like structure. After determined… Zumthor’s buildings have a smouldering fire was kept burning for three weeks inside this log tent, what remained of the wood was removed from a strong, timeless presence. He has the concrete shell. The chapel floor is covered with lead. a rare talent of combining clear and rigorous thought with a truly poetic dimension, resulting in works that never cease to inspire.” hinge 167_48 hinge 167_49 of ‘otherness’ – almost ethereality – the intended result of a clever talent, something deliberately sought by Zumthor and his building clients? Is it the consequence of precisely his insistence on working by his own methods, take it or leave it? Does the very ‘difficulty’ of producing architecture with a master who is averse to compromise go some way to ensuring a masterwork?. Or is there something more profound occurring, something truly inherent to the buildings he makes, something like an interior essence that roots in a poetic soil – the kind of core the rest of us dream of reaching? This latter, irksomely romantic, notion has adhered to certain architects over the ages, and probably always will. And there is a surface sympathy among some of them. One thinks of Louis Kahn, for instance, whose hushed, exquisitely crafted few buildings commanded a similarly exalted admiration. Murcutt, of course, is another. These practitioners were and remain hardly anonymous, even as they seemed to genuinely struggle with the idea of recognition. Certainly since the Vals Spa exploded onto the planet’s consciousness, Zumthor has lost any chance at invisibility; the building startled us and hypnotised us in an instant – as if someone had suddenly uncovered a vast preserved Roman city or Egyptian pyramid, intact John Pawson: “He has an amazing portfolio. It may be only a Photography by Helene Binet few, but how many good buildings do you need? If I could know only one living architect, it would be Art Museum Kolumba Zumthor. The thought, the materiality – his work is Cologne, Germany physically very pleasing and just gorgeous.” 2007 The Art Museum of the Cologne Archdiocese was to be a ‘living Todd Williams: museum’. The new building in the city centre rises from the ruins of the late Gothic Saint Kolumba Church. Its floor contains a large archaeological excavation site with the remains of previous “It’s about an individual’s sense of his role as an church buildings dating back to the 7th century. These givens led Zumthor to a building that provides seventeen galleries of architect. You have the sense that this is right, that this different proportions and with different lighting schemes on three is good. He’ll continue to be kind of a cult figure. His floors, with a total floor space of 1,750sq m. work is hard for people to understand. It’s his blessing and his burden.” hinge 167_50 hinge 167_51 Photography by Walter Mair and Thomas Flechtner Brad Cloepfil: “He is, unequivocally, the most important architect working today. He mines the realm of the spirit, of profound meaning. He works with Swiss Sound Box the visceral elements of building, Hanover, Germany which is extraordinarily rare in 2000 Taking the sustainability theme seriously, the Swiss Pavilion for the 2000 Hanover Expo contemporary architecture. His work was constructed out of 144km of lumber with a cross-section of 20 by 10cm, totalling 2,800sq m of pine from the Swiss forests, assembled without glue, bolts or nails, and only braced with steel cables, with each beam pressed down on the one below. After the Expo, is like a tuning fork in the chaos.” the building was dismantled and the beams were sold as seasoned timber. hinge 167_52 hinge 167_53 and awesomely beautiful. In the flood Kunsthaus Bregenz of shared wonderment (and published Bregenz, Austria celebration) may have been lost the 1997 subtle irony of such excitement being caused by a monument to quiet and Although the competition brief called for a conventional provincial gallery, stillness… a health retreat devoted in time the museum evolved into a four-storey building, ushering the to, indeed seemingly oozing the administration, café and museum shop to a separate structure in front of essence of, tranquillity. It was instantly the museum. The museum is designed without windows, yet daylight is manifest the architect had produced everywhere. Etched glass shingles that refract the light before it enters that most clichéd grail of the art worlds, the building transmit the light horizontally into the interior. Zumthor placed a cavity on every floor to catch the light coming in from all four sides and the masterwork. Some ten years in exploited the ability of the etched glass to diffuse light; it strikes the glass the making, its owners can sleep ceiling and is deflected down into each gallery. peacefully in the knowledge that if ever the supply of stressed, overweight or simply repose-minded spa clients ever dwindles, the place will never go short of pilgrimaging architects. Can architecture that seems to so consistently provoke such intense appreciation truly remain – for long – immune to the poison of recognition and fame? Can Zumthor persist in leaking out, slowly, steadily, sublime forms and spaces under the corrupting glare of superstardom, exactly when such an integral aspect of his achievement is the absence of gratuitousness or attention-seeking in it? Can you remain Photography by Helene Binet the quiet craftsman craving the silent seclusion requisite for concentration, when all around you are crowds (clients, students, critics, colleagues) clamouring for your reflected brilliance? We shall see. Interestingly, Zumthor himself doesn’t seem to suffer any paranoia Luzi House Jenaz, Switzerland 2002 A no-frills private residence with a separate granny flat, or ‘Stoeckli’ as it is called in Switzerland, for a young couple with six small children. This spacious, expansive house with light-filled rooms is constructed completely of solid wood. It is a further development of the blockhouses typical for Jenaz, with large windows and large balconies full of flowers. Photography by Walter Mair hinge 167_54 about recognition; upon learning he’d won, he stated: “Being awarded the Pritzker Prize is a wonderful recognition of the architectural work we have done in the last 20 years. That a body of work as small as ours is recognised in the professional world makes us feel proud and should give much hope to young professionals that if they strive for quality in their work, it might become visible without any special promotion.” Well, nothing like a Pritzker to take care of the promotion part… It is strongly appealing, this idea that great architecture needs no help in finding its audience and, helter-skelter, becoming known.