Peter Zumthor quotes

Peter Zumthor is a renowned Swiss architect celebrated for his minimalist and sensory architectural designs. His works emphasize materiality, atmosphere, and the experience of space. He is considered one of the most influential architects of his generation and has received numerous prestigious awards. Here are 35 of his quotes:

When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material. I believe architecture is about that. It's not about paper, it's not about forms. It's about space and material. (Peter Zumthor)
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 feel it in your heart. It's actually a beautiful feeling. View quote
Peter Zumthor
Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to past life. View quote
Peter Zumthor
If you're lucky, and a building succeeds, the real product has many more dimensions than you can ever imagine. You have the sun, the light, the rain, the birds, the feel. View quote
Peter Zumthor
Normally, architects render a service. They implement what other people want. This is not what I do. I like to develop the use of the building together with the client, in a process, so that as we go along we become more intelligent. View quote
Peter Zumthor
My buildings should have an emotional core –a space which, in itself, has an emotional nice feeling. View quote
Peter Zumthor
If you look at the Earth without architecture, its sometimes a little bit unpleasant. So there is this basic human need to do shelter in the broadest sense of the word, whether its a movie theater or a simple log cabin in the mountains. This is the core of architecture: To provide a space for human beings. View quote
Peter Zumthor
I'm not mainly interested in what buildings mean as symbols or vehicles for ideas. View quote
Peter Zumthor
My relationship to plants becomes closer and closer. They make me quiet; I like to be in their company. View quote
Peter Zumthor
In a society that celebrates the inessential, architecture can put up a resistance, counteract the waste of forms and meanings and speak its own language. View quote
Peter Zumthor
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. (Peter Zumthor)
There is still a real need for good quality architecture, not paper architecture, but the real stuff. View quote
Peter Zumthor
If, early on, you know how things are put together, then you can build. The architect is in charge of making - he is not an artist. View quote
Peter Zumthor
Small museums are great. Big museums are a drag. View quote
Peter Zumthor
I've said goodbye to the overworked notion that architecture has to save the world. View quote
Peter Zumthor
I think the chance of finding beauty is higher if you don't work on it directly. Beauty in architecture is driven by practicality. This is what you learn from studying the old townscapes of the Swiss farmers. View quote
Peter Zumthor
What I try to do is the art of building, and the art of building is the art of construction; it is not only about forms and shapes and images. View quote
Peter Zumthor
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 - sheltered places of great intimacy where I want to stay for a long time. View quote
Peter Zumthor
My first buildings, when I was about 30, were rejected for aesthetic reasons. View quote
Peter Zumthor
The first 10 years of my professional life had only to do with running away from my father. He was a wonderful cabinet-maker, and me being the eldest son, I had to take over his shop, his profession and so on and so on. I tried to escape by going to art school and then going on to industrial design and then interior design. View quote
Peter Zumthor
The bottom line may be that my inventing buildings is, indeed, a very private kind of activity. But it's done to be shared. It is comforting and consoling. From the reactions I get I can see I'm not doing something strange. (Peter Zumthor)
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. View quote
Peter Zumthor
I am convinced that a good building must be capable of absorbing the traces of human life and taking on a specific richness... I think of the patina of age on materials, of innumerable small scratches on surfaces, of varnish that has grown dull and brittle, and of edges polished by use. View quote
Peter Zumthor
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. View quote
Peter Zumthor
If I look at history, it seems that most wars and most cruel things have been done by men and not by women. View quote
Peter Zumthor

Peter Zumthor

Peter Zumthor - Image
Photo: KovacsDaniel, CC BY-SA 4.0
Occupation: Swiss Architect
Born: April 26, 1943
Quotes count: 35

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