58 Quotes by Peter Zumthor

I've built two wooden houses near Vals. I built them for my wife. Those were private projects.

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.

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.

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.

Small museums are great. Big museums are a drag.

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.

My relationship to plants becomes closer and closer. They make me quiet; I like to be in their company.

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.

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.