Swiss architect Peter Zumthor was in Buenos Aires Friday to officially accept architecture’s top recognition, the 2009 Pritzker Prize for Architecture.

The Pritzker Prize was established in 1979 by the Pritzker family, based in Chicago, to honor a living architect whose works produce “consistent and significant contributions to humanity.”

Zumthor has become something of a hero in an industry where celebrity architects win headlines and lucrative commissions for what he described as "beautiful images."

He has devoted years of work to the handful of projects he created – and he is passionate about what he does…

[Peter Zumthor, 2009 Pritzer Prize Winner]:
“I am at the same place like at the time when I experienced architecture as a boy without knowing it. This is what I love. These beginnings, these moments of beginnings.”

But the 65-year-old Swiss native is well aware of what lies beyond the bliss.

[Peter Zumthor, 2009 Pritzer Prize Winner]:
“And then comes the really hard task when I have to take care that nobody destroys my first image. Because as you know we're doing this job as architects, we are surrounded by politics, by laws, by money, by clients who have weak moments, and all these things. So sometimes people want to take away or harm my image - my baby."

Many of Zumthor's works dot the mountainous canton where he has lived and worked for the past 30 years, including his best-known project, Therme Vals.

The luxury spa consists of 60 thousand precision-cut quartzite stone slabs built into a hillside surrounded by soaring peaks.

Zumthor spurned joining the family business of cabinet-making, and instead opted to move to New York in 1967 to study at the Pratt Institute.

He is often described in complimentary terms as a recluse or an outsider.

Zumthor acknowledges that publicity was important, but he is disinclined to put out a press release "as soon as I make two walls and a roof." 

In his words, “I say, let's wait a little. Let's do some work, and the buildings should speak for themselves. That's how I am."