"I work anywhere between three and 10 years on a project, depending on the size. My lifetime is finit..." — Peter Zumthor

I grew up in a craftsman's home, where things were done with our own hands. I did cabinetmaking for four years and I hated it.

Small museums are great. Big museums are a drag.

The bottom line may be that my inventing buildings is, indeed, a very private kind of activity. But it's done to be shared. It is comforting and consoling. From the reactions I get I can see I'm not doing something strange.

Normally, architects render a service. They implement what other people want. This is not what I do. I like to develop the use of the building together with the client, in a process, so that as we go along we become more intelligent.