In 2006, he received the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Architecture from the University of Virginia. His many awards include the Praemium Imperiale from the Japan Art Association in 2008 as well as the Carlsberg Architecture Prize in Denmark in 1998, and the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture in 1999. He has also been a visiting professor at the University of Southern California Institute of Architecture and SCI-ARC in Los Angeles in 1988 at the Technische Universität, Munich in 1989 and at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University in 1999. Since 1996, he has been a professor at the Academy of Architecture, Universitá della Svizzera Italiana, Mendrisio. They have three children, all adults, Anna Katharina, Peter Conradin, and Jon Paulin, and two grandchildren. Zumthor is married to Annalisa Zumthor-Cuorad. He established his own practice in 1979 in Haldenstein, Switzerland where he still works with a small staff of fifteen. In 1967, he was employed by the Canton of Graubünden (Switzerland) in the Department for the Preservation of Monuments working as a building and planning consultant and architectural analyst of historical villages, in addition to realizing some restorations.

From 1963-67, he studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Vorkurs and Fachklasse with further studies in design at Pratt Institute in New York. He trained as a cabinet maker from 1958 to 1962. From the composition and 'presence' of the materials to the handling of proportions and the effect of light, this poetics of architecture enables the reader to recapitulate what really matters in the process of house design.Peter Zumthor was born on April 26, 1943, the son of a cabinet maker, Oscar Zumthor, in Basel, Switzerland. Images of spaces and buildings that affect him are every bit as important as particular pieces of music or books that inspire him. under whose spell I experience what I otherwise would not experience in precisely this way.' Zumthor's passion is the creation of buildings that produce this kind of effect, but how can one actually set out to achieve it? In nine short, illustrated chapters framed as a process of self-observation, Peter Zumthor describes what he has on his mind as he sets about creating the atmosphere of his houses. What 'really constitutes an architectural atmosphere'? Peter Zumthor says, is 'this singular density and mood, this feeling of presence, well-being, harmony, beauty. Atmospheres - Architectural Environments.

Peter zumthor atmospheres book