Since winning Italy's prestigious Borromini prize in 2001, Mathias Klotz has been considered one of the most accomplished young architects working in the world today. Born and raised in Chile as the grandson of German immigrants, Klotz brings a unique perspective to the work he does, whether at home or abroad. At once steeped in his native land's materials, techniques, and traditions, and inspired by the work of such European modernists as Marcel Breuer, Klotz has developed an approach to design that always takes into consideration the human experience. Klotz's series of one-family residences in Chile-often sited in isolated landscapes-are striking variations on the modernist box. Constructed of whitewashed or untreated wood rather than stone or concrete, these residential structures make appropriate use of local materials while referring structurally and programatically to the work of Klotz's architectural forebears. Trading in wood for harder stuff in larger public spaces, Klotz has also created a number of stand-alone buildings and additions to historical structures that artfully play with scale, color, and translucency-including the multihued Altamira secondary school, which won him international attention at the beginning of the new century.
