May 30, 2009 - 11:33

Zumthor picks up "Nobel" prize of architecture

Swiss architect Peter Zumthor has received this year's prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize at a ceremony in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Zumthor, aged 66, received a $100,000 grant (SFr106.680) and a bronze medallion for what is considered the Nobel prize of architecture.

"His work commands attention and respect the world over," jury chairman Lord Peter Palumbo said at the ceremony.

He added: "He is not remotely interested in the cult of celebrity. Public relations, glamour, spin are to him an anathema."

The Pritzker jury in particular highlighted the thermal baths in Vals, canton Graubünden, a maze of pools enclosed by concrete and stone mined from the surrounding hills, and the Kolumba Museum in the German city of Cologne, a building set in the ruins of a late Gothic church destroyed in the Second World War.

Born in Basel, Switzerland, Zumthor trained for five years as a cabinet maker before beginning his university studies, which included time at New York's Pratt Institute.

In 1979, after working as a building and planning consultant for canton Graubünden, he established his practice in the small town of Haldenstein, where he works with a modest staff of 20 people.

swissinfo.ch with agencies