Last week (April 26, 2013) renowned Swiss architect Peter Zumthor celebrated his 70th birthday. Winner of numerous prestigious awards, including the 2007 Pritzker Prize and most recently the 2013 RIBA Royal Gold Medal, Zumthor is regarded as one of the most influential and revered contemporary architects of our time. With a new five volume book, Peter Zumthor: Buildings and Projects 1986-2013, due out this September 2013, the architect’s star has never been brighter and his careful approach to his career – maintaining a small studio and only taking on a select few projects at a time – never more a model to emulate. For while in comparison to his peers, he may have produced fewer structures, what he has produced consistently falls into the ranks of the most stunning and acclaimed architecture around. Today, in celebration of our beloved Zumthor’s 70th year, D is visiting an old personal favorite from his portfolio, the Therme Vals in Switzerland.

Completed in 1996 and built over the only thermal springs in the Graubunden Canton region, The Therme Vals are situated on, and attached to, the site of a pre-existing 1970s hotel complex. Limited by his client’s request that he not build up, Zumthor approached the project as if it were a cave or quarry – as something that might have been there as long as the ancient thermal springs themselves. The result is a half buried structure built into the hillside – its grass covered roof serving as a visual continuation of the existing hotel’s yard.

Furthering the concept of a structure that is one with the land, Zumthor envisioned monolithic walls which he achieved by layering locally quarried Valser Quarzite slabs in thin panels measuring 31, 47, and 63 mm high. This specific formula of ‘stratification’ was carried though the whole of the baths, without exception, to stunning visual effect.

Nestled among stone walls and 15 massive supporting rectangular columns lie a series of indoor and outdoor pools just waiting to be explored. That said, it would be a mistake to think that a visitor’s experience of the Vals is not carefully choreographed with Zumthor wielding his materials of stone and air, water and steam, light and shade to masterful effect. It is said that at each turn the space allows then denies, reveals then hides – creating what must be a sensory filled mix of anticipation, surprise, and delight.

When asked to describe his highly lauded creation Zumthor replied, “Mountain, stone, water – building in stone, building with stone, building into the mountain, building out of the mountain, being in the mountain – how can all the associations and all the sensuousness which these words evoke be translated into a building, that is to say, interpreted in architectural terms? As we worked on the design of this building and saw it take shape, we gradually found answers to these questions.” – Peter Zumthor

Photos: 1, 2, 3, 10, 11, 13 via DimScale, 4, 5, 15, 16 via Graubuenden, 6, 7, 17 via ArchDaily, 8, 9 via Velux Stiftung, 12, 14 via Hotels Design

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