The first book on a fundamental part of Atelier Zumthor’s design process: his architectural models.

Models of various sizes and scales, as well as material studies, are an essential working tool for celebrated Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. They serve to examine spatial ideas, shapes, materialization, and artisanal aspects of the buildings on which the architect and his studio collaborators are working. These architectural models are always sophisticated, some are spectacular, and many are very detailed, while others are deliberately rough. They have been on display in exhibitions internationally and have fascinated a wide audience.

Atelier Peter Zumthor: Architecture Models features some 350 color and black-and-white photographs. They show models made of a wide variety of materials for forty-seven of Zumthor’s buildings and unrealized projects, ranging from the Therme Vals Thermal Spa and the Kunsthaus Bregenz to the recently completed new building for the LACMA in Los Angeles and the extension for the Fondation Beyeler near Basel, currently under construction. The models reflect Peter Zumthor’s pursuit of an architecture in which the construction and material create an intense atmosphere.