The Swiss architect Peter Zumthor is the recipient of the 2009 Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Zumthor's work, much of it built in Switzerland, is remarkable for its visual simplicity, its reliance on pure and sensuous materials, including wood and local stones, and for its careful integration into the natural or urban landscape, the Washington Post said.

Zumthor, who for 30 years has worked in the remote Swiss mountain village of Haldenstein, joins an elite club of architects, such as Philip Johnson, Frank Gehry, Oscar Niemeyer and Zaha Hadid, honored with the USD 10 000 prize.

"When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to plumb its depths, its form, its history and its sensuous qualities," Zumthor has written.

The architect will receive the prize on May 29 in Buenos Aires.

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