equotes.xyx

Peter Zumthor quotes

I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It's not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.

Copy Quote View & Share

Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to past life.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

There is still a real need for good quality architecture, not paper architecture, but the real stuff.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

I work a little bit like a sculptor. 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.

Copy Quote View & Share

Architecture has its place in the concrete world. This is where it exists. This is where it makes its statement.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

I think space, architectural space, is my thing. It's not about facade, elevation, making image, making money. My passion is creating space.

Copy Quote View & Share

I work a little bit like a sculptor. 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.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

I need a close contact to the client, whoever it is, and a commitment of the client to go out and do a process together. I want to do the best for him. I need his respect and his patience. I want to work with a sophisticated person who's interested in a good building and not in my name.

Copy Quote View & Share

Architecture to me is whole. I cannot say I only care about this 25% and the other 75% I let go... it's just I want to work the way I want to work. In my shop, you can order certain things and other things you cannot. They are not available.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

I work a little bit like a sculptor. 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.

Copy Quote View & Share

If you look at the Earth without architecture, it's sometimes a little bit unpleasant. So there is this basic human need to do shelter in the broadest sense of the word, whether it's a movie theater or a simple log cabin in the mountains. This is the core of architecture: To provide a space for human beings.

Copy Quote View & Share

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

Copy Quote View & Share

My buildings should have an emotional core - a space which, in itself, has an emotional nice feeling.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

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.

Copy Quote View & Share

If you look at the Earth without architecture, it's sometimes a little bit unpleasant. So there is this basic human need to do shelter in the broadest sense of the word, whether it's a movie theater or a simple log cabin in the mountains. This is the core of architecture: To provide a space for human beings.

Copy Quote View & Share