The Thermal Bath, Vals, Switzerland

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The Thermal Bath, Vals, Switzerland

• by
• Peter Zumthor

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Peter Zumthor

• Born
• 1943 Basel, Switzerland
• Education
• 1958 Apprenticeship in cabinet-making.
• 1963 Schuler für Gestalung, Basel, Switzerland.
• 1966 Pratt Institute, New York, USA, visiting
  student in architecture and design.

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Career 1968 Architect in the Department for the
Care and Presentation of Monument, Canton
Graubünden, Switzerland. 1988 Visiting
professor, Southern California Institute of
Architecture, Santa Monica, Los Angeles, USA.
1989 Visiting professor, Technische Universität
München, Germany. 1989 Workshop leader, Granz
Summer School, Austria. 1996 Honorary member,
Bund Deutcher Architekten, BDA, Germany.
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Peter Zumther is an architect who cultivates
singularity and retreat and mistrusts any kind of
excessively theoretical stance instead he prefers
to remain firmly nanchored to the reality of
things around us and keenly alive to the
sensations they stir. He believes that there are
no ideas except in things. The meticulous
attention Zumther pays to materials and to their
visual, tactile and even olfactory attributes. He
applies materials with the sophisticated
precision and he pursues the skills and
techniques of construction. Each of Zumthors
works always responds to extraordinary
architectural demands.
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Summery
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Out of the eastern flank of the basin-shaped
valley of Vals, a good 1200 meters above sea
level rises a spring. The site next to the spring
was once occupied by a modest spa hotel dating
from 1893.The hotel had a number of finely
appointed bathing cabins and shower rooms, and
from around 1930, its clientele dwindled. It was
replaced by a new spa built in1960. The 1960s
spa is simply built.In 1996, this second spa has
in turn become obsolete and was replaced by the
mew thermal bath at the end of 1996.The new
thermal baths is an independent structure set
into the sloping southwest corner of the existing
hotel. Access is via a subterranean passage
leading from the hotel. The whole structure was
built with local stone in Vals.The facility of
the Baths including indoor pool, outdoor pool,
rest space, changing room , space for the
disabled and several baths with various functions
can meet demands of different people.
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Changing room
Space for the disabled
Indoor pool
Outdoor pool
Rest place
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Go with the surroundings Structure and Space
The Fantastic Light
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Go with the surroundings
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The thermal bath is an independent structure. The
building takes the form of a large, grass-covered
stone object set deep into the mountain and
dovetailed into its flank. It was designed to
follow the role the establishing of a special
relationship with the mountain landscape, its
natural power, geological substance and
impressive topograghy. It tries to make us
believe that it is always standing there and
seems to be the part of the landscape. It is
probably profoundly archaic heritage..
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The whole building is built by stone. The section
and profile of the structure as a whole is
determined by a conscious series of natural stone
stratalayer upon layer of Vals gneiss, quarried
1000 meters further up the valley , transported
to site and built back into the same slope
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Structure and Space
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Conception

• The whole structure a large porous stone.
• The elements a geometric cave system.
• The stone is built of stone.

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Relation

• The uniform stone layering principle.
• Technical solutions.
• The light from the ceiling fissures.

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The uniform stone layering principle
One stone layer is placed on top of another.
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transition
ceiling
wall
floor
By the same consistent layering principle
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The light from the ceiling
Light slits adds to the sense of fluidity of the
overall space.
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Space Function

• Secondary floor the primal act of bathing

Make-up room
Showers
Changing room

• Main floor a series of stones cubic volumes

The central bath
The outdoor bath
The terrace
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Space and function
Make-up room
Changing room
Showers
The central bath
The terrace
The outdoor bath
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Humanism design

• Therapy space.
• Space for the disabled.
• Rest space.

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Therapy space
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Rest space
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The Fantastic Light

• The natural light
• The artificial light

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The natural light
fissures

• Beautiful fissures in the ceiling
• They bring light to the large stone
  cave
• Fissures in a certain shape
• Fissures used in narrow spaces

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Beautiful fissures in the ceiling
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Beautiful fissures in the ceiling
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Fissures in a certain shape
The natural light

• A network of fissures are in the ceiling
• The fissures are in the shape of the letter
  T instead of a cross
• One side of block is washed by toplight
• The light on the stone walls are somewhat
  like the marks left by the spring

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A net work of fissures are in the ceiling
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Fissures in the shape of T
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One side of block is washed by toplight
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The light on the stone walls are somewhat like
the marks left by the spring
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Fissures used in narrow space
The natural light

• Narrow spaces with the long fissures letting
  sunlight in
• Using the long fissures can avoid opening
  numbers of windows

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Narrow spaces with the long fissures letting
sunlight in
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Narrow spaces with the long fissures letting
sunlight in
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• The sunlight go straight to
  the ground
• Some are reflected to the opposite wall

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The natural light
Windows

• Windows in different sizes
• They bring light as well as the beautiful
  landscape in to the stone
• It all depends on function
• A game played with light

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Windows in different sizes
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Windows in different sizes
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They bring light as well as the beautiful
landscape in to the stone
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• It all depends on function

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hllt12
l
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A game played with light
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The artificial light
Thermal baths at Vals

• With gloomy light , you back to the ancient time
• With blue light ,you next to the water

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With gloomy light , you back to the ancient time
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With blue light ,you next to the water
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What interests me is to see how a building
constructed on a particular site radiates
something which alters the place, allows that
which already exists there to appear in a new
guise.Building can have a beautiful silence
that I associate with attributes such as
composure, self-evidence, durability, presence
and integrity, and with warmth and sensuousness
as well a building that is being itself, being a
building, not representing anything, just being.
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I had not expected this concurrent hardness and
softness , this smooth yet rugged quality , this
iridescent gray-green presence emanating from the
square tome blocks. For a moment, I had the
feeling that our project had escaped us and
become independent because it had evolved into a
material entity that obeyed its own laws.
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The Thermal Bath, Vals, Switzerland
Thank you!
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