“L.A. was tough,” Zumthor acknowledged when we met at his office in Haldenstein, Switzerland, population 1,000, a village about 70 miles southeast of Zurich. We sat down inside the taller of his firm’s two studio buildings, which holds drawings and a series of models of the LACMA project as well as plans for a compound Zumthor is designing for the Qatari ruling family and, on a nearby shelf, a coffee mug reading “Best Boss Ever.”

On the question of why he didn’t think he’d work again in the U.S., Zumthor at first cast his answer in a positive light. He praised his work with LACMA’s director, Michael Govan, and with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the collaborating architect on the new building, which is designed to hold LACMA’s permanent collection.1

....

• 1. Complications with the building’s foundation, as well as the discovery of fossils on the site, have delayed construction by roughly a year. According to Govan, this has pushed total building costs for the new wing to $715 million, from a projected $650 million, forcing the design to be streamlined to keep it from going higher still.