Moritz Holfelder
Moritz Holfelder, born in 1958, studied journalism and art history at LMU Munich. From 1985 to 2025, he worked as a cultural journalist for Bayerischer Rundfunk; he is also the author of various books, including a “Cultural History of Motorcycling” (in dialogue with John Berger), an illustrated book about the “Palace of the Republic” in East Berlin, and a biography of Werner Herzog.
Radio feature: Cinema for listening
Moritz Holfelder brings his German Audiobook Prize-winning portrait of Peter Zumthor to the big screen. In a darkened cinema, he complements the complex and polyphonic soundtrack with images of the most important buildings by this idiosyncratic and celebrated architect: the Bruder Klaus Field Chapel, the Vals Thermal Spa, the Sogn Benedetg Chapel, the Kunsthaus Bregenz, and the Cologne Diocesan Museum. The result is a captivating architectural photo film. Holfelder follows in the footsteps of Zumthor, who seeks to discover the essence of things in architecture. The 2009 Pritzker Prize winner achieves this primarily by reducing his designs to a few materials and clear forms. He combines minimalism and sensuality in a fascinating way. And he takes his time. A lot of time. The architect does not see himself as a service provider, but as a creator of extraordinary buildings.
The portrait of Peter Zumthor is based on hours of interviews with the architect, excerpts of which can be heard. These are accompanied by descriptions of the buildings recited by the author and a narrator, as well as acoustic explorations of Zumthor’s buildings, recorded with an artificial head microphone that allows the listener to experience the special spatiality, supplemented by sounds and a soundtrack of its own. The jury’s statement on the German Audiobook Prize said: “The author succeeds in doing the seemingly impossible: he makes architecture audible.” Laura Weißmüller wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung: “The buildings are described in such detail that the listener feels as if they are accompanying the narrator on his tour through the architecture, walking down the stairs with him, turning around, then continuing on, and thus slowly getting a feel for the building.” The meditative use of photos corresponds to this style without detracting from the listening experience.
More information about the radio feature is available here: Die Magie des Realen: Der Schweizer Architekt Peter Zumthor