Peter Zumthor: Kunsthaus Bregenz by Peter Zumthor

The glass panels that cover the main building look almost like "lightly ruffled feathers" (Zumthor). During daytime the new Kunsthaus in Bregenz by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor creates the impression of a semi-transparent glass body: at night it becomes a 30 metre high cube - highly visible: a statement in light. The interior of the building - a stack of three rooms comprising an exhibition space of 1800 square metres, with a highly sophisticated air-conditioning system that both heats and cools, is constructed in smooth concrete, terrazzo, matt glass and indirect, virtually natural light. Situated on the shores of Lake Constance the main building, with its side structure and services, creates a high quality focus in the town, "a centre for Bregenz where once there was an inner-city wasteland" as Friedrich Achleitner has put it. The new Kunsthaus bears witness to Zumthor's consistently intense dialogue with the sites he designs for. This volume presents the most recent work of this architect who has "at last achieved cult status" (Stuttgarter Zeitung) with his exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art in New York - following many acclaimed projects and awards including, not least, his 1997 design for the Diocesan Museum in Cologne.

In German and English