May 30, 2009, 14:32 GMT
Buenos Aires - Swiss architect Peter Zumthor was awarded the coveted Pritzker Prize, considered architecture's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, late Friday in Buenos Aires.
The formal ceremony was held at the central Legislative Palace of the City of Buenos Aires, while a celebratory dinner was held later at the nearby Palacio San Martin. The Pritzker has been awarded for 30 years, and this was the first time the ceremony has been held in South America.
As winner of the prestigious prize, Zumthor received a 100,000- dollar grant and a bronze medallion.
'Peter Zumthor is a master architect admired by his colleagues around the world for work that is focused, uncompromising and exceptionally determined,' the Pritzker Prize jury said in its decision. 'He develops buildings of great integrity - untouched by fad or fashion.'
Both controversial and idiosyncratic, Zumthor, 65, works quietly in the Swiss village of Haldenstein, but he has designed projects in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, England, Spain, Norway, Finland and the United States.
'Being awarded the Pritzker Prize is a wonderful recognition of the architectural work we have done in the last 20 years,' Zumthor said in a statement when he was named this year's winner in April.
Zumthor's most famous work is in Vals, Switzerland, the Thermal Baths, which was singled out for praise by the prize jury. Jurors applauded his work on the Kolumba art museum in Cologne as 'a startling contemporary work, but also one that is completely at ease with its many layers of history.'
The prize was created by the Chicago-based Pritzker family, who own the Hyatt hotel chain.
Hyatt Foundation Chairman Thomas Pritzker quoted from the jury citation: 'All of Peter Zumthor's buildings have a strong, timeless presence. He has a rare talent of combining clear and rigorous thought with a truly poetic dimension, resulting in works that never cease to inspire.'
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