"I never give the go-ahead for anything until I have the feeling that it is right, which is perhaps rather more the mentality and approach of a composer of a string quartet or an author of a book," he once said in an interview with Credit Suisse's e-magazine.
"It would be fair to say that I am a distinctive author-architect, and so not the right choice for people who treat architecture simply as a service."
Commissions by the corporate world where speed is of the essence are therefore absent from his projects.
Rather, many of his buildings are local housing projects, or religious or cultural infrastructure, such as the Bruder-Klaus Kapelle in Germany which was commissioned by local farmers and constructed by them.
The chapel, built with layers of concrete, has since its completion in 2007 attracted architecture pilgrims and international acclaim.
It is for these perfectly crafted buildings that Zumthor has become one of the most important architects in Switzerland.
Over his career, he has also scooped up a series of awards.
Among the most prestigious was Japan's Praemium Imperiale for top artists worldwide, which he won last year, and his latest haul, the top architecture prize Pritzker.
Born 1943 in the northern Switzerland's Basel, the son of a cabinet-maker was an apprentice at his father's workshop before training in design and architecture.
In 1968, Zumthor became an architect at eastern Swiss canton Graubuenden's Department Preservation of Monuments.
In 1979, he started his own practice in Haldenstein, Graubuenden, where he still based today.
Several of his works are located in eastern Switzerland. His style is minimalist and sensitive to the local environment, an approach embodied in Therme Vals, which is among his best known projects.
A thermal spa set against the gradient of the Graubuenden mountains, Therme Vals looks simple and unassuming from the exterior. But it was built with 60,000 precisely cut and uniformly stacked quartzite stone quarried from the region.
As Zumthor explained his concept on the spa's website: "Mountain, stone, water - building in the stone, building with stone, into the mountain, building out of the mountain, being inside the mountain - how can the implications and the sensuality in the association of these words be interpreted, architecturally?
"The whole concept was designed by following up these questions; so that it all took form step by step."
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