therme vals bath in Switzerland is one of the most important structure design by Peter zumthor for which he got Pritzker award

1. PETER ZUMTHOR
My buildings are declarations of love for their sites...
- PETERZUMTHOR
By :
MOHD. SIDDIQ SALIM
B-ARCH , IIIYR
POORNIMA UNIVERSITY , JAIPUR

2. INTRODUCTION
.
 Born on 26th April !943 is an Swiss architect
 Zumthor founded his own firm in 1979.
 He won Pritzker prize for Therme Vals in 2009.
 His buildings explore the tactile and sensory qualities of spaces
and materials while retaining a minimalist feel.
 He was born in Basel, he spent the late 1960s as a visiting student
at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, and he has taught architecture at
Santa Monica’s SCI-Arc and Harvard.
 He began his career as a carpenter, and all of his architecture has
the qualities a great cabinetmaker brings to his work: it is precise,
and its glory lies in the perfection of its details and in the
excellence of its materials.
 His work on historic restoration projects gave him a further
understanding of construction and the qualities of different rustic
building materials.
PETER ZUMTHOR

3. ARCHITECT’S PHILOSOPHY
• He believes that in the end of every conceptual thinking starts real
architecture which is based on structure and materials.
• One of the architects who incorporated and realized phenomenology
in his work is Peter Zumthor. His buildings incorporate his knowledge
of materials into modernist construction and detailing, while they
explore the tactile and sensory qualities of spaces and other materials,
maintaining a minimalistic feel.
• His buildings look as if they were made by hand, and while they are
unabashedly modern, they bespeak craftsmanship more than high
tech.
• Zumthor’s design merges lightness and technology with a grace.
• Zumthor expresses his motivation to design buildings that speak to our
feelings and understanding and buildings that possess a powerful
presence and personality.
“To me, buildings 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”

4. “Sometimes I can almost feel a particular door handle in my hand, a piece
of metal shaped like the back of a spoon. That door handle still seems to
me like a special sign of entry into a world of different moods and smells.
I remember the sound of the gravel under my feet, the soft gleam of the
waxed oak staircase,
I can hear the heavy front door closing behind me. . . .
Memories like these contain the deepest architectural experience that I
know. They are the reservoirs of the architectural atmospheres and
images that I explore in my work as an architect.”

5. WORKS
THERME VAL BATHS, SWITZERLAND
THE SWISS PAVILION FOR EXPO 2000 IN
HANNOVER, AN ALL-TIMBER STRUCTURE
INTENDED TO BE RECYCLED AFTER THE EVENT
THE KOLUMBA DIOCESAN MUSEUM (2007), IN
COLOGNE, GERMANY
BRUDER KLAUS FIELD CHAPEL,
ON A FARM NEAR WACHENDORF,
GERMANY
INTERIOR OF THE CHAPEL (MELTED LEAD IS USED
KUNSTHAUS BREGENZ,
VORARLBERG,
AUSTRIA (1997)

6. THERMEVALS
■ “Mountain, stone, water – building in the
stone, building with the stone, into the
mountain, building out of the mountain,
being inside the mountain – how can the
implications and the sensuality of the
association of these words be interpreted,
architecturally?” - Peter Zumthor
■ Location: Graubünden, Switzerland
■ Design and Construction: 1986-1996
■ Client: Municipality ofVals, Graubünden
■ Special features –
– MOUNTAIN :GEOLOGY OF THE SITE BUILT
INTO THE MOUNTAINS
– MATERIAL: STONE
– WATER: FUNCTION BATH
SOURCE : http://www.archdaily.com/13358/the-therme-vals

7. In the 1960s a German property developer, Karl Kurt Vorlop, built a
hotel complex with over 1,000 beds to take advantage of the
naturally occurring thermal springs and the source, which provides
the water for Valser mineral water, sold throughout Switzerland.
After the developer went bankrupt, the village of Vals bought up
the five hotels in the development in 1983 and resolved to
commission a hydrotherapy centre at the centre of the five hotels,
at the source of the thermal springs. In 2012 the hotel and spa,
previously owned by the Vals community, was sold to the investor
Remo Stoffel.
HISTORY

8. ■ Building siting.Therme vals sits in the
hillside as a natural rock outcropping,
balanced between the existing
buildings on the site, navigating views
and visits.
■
Vals at the base of the swiss alps is
about, water, and the landscape.
Therme vals is about water, in the
landscape.
SITE

9. HOTEL THERME
ACTUAL PHOTO

10. The concept of public bath itself is intriguing, since it can connote the ideas of baptism
and purity, since baths were a Roman tradition
Therme Vals became an icon of contemporary
architecture
Built the structure on the sharp grade of an
Alpine mountain slope with grass-topped roofs
to mimic Swiss meadows.
The spa building embraces many natural
elements, such as heat, light, water, stone,
sound in distributions and combination
beyond conventionality while comprising an
environment of the senses.
CONCEPT

11. ■ TheThermeVals is a hotel and spa for which the
idea was to create a form of cave or quarry like
structure.The idea of a quarry , were cut out of
the single blocks, so that between the stacked and
cut out block caves are created.
■ TheThermeVals is built from layer upon layer of
locally quarriedValser Quarzite slabs.
■ The ‘natural’ thermal water which comes from the
mountain just behind the baths has a temperature
of 30°C.
■ There is no directly visible entrance to the building
- the visitors are access to the complex through a
tunnel.
■ Architecture is bridging the gap between the
randomness of nature and man-made
construction.

12. 1 1 1 1
23
4
5
6
1-Terraces
2-Indoor pool
3-Outdoor pool
4-Showers
5-Changing rooms
6-Make up room
7-Entrance from the hotel
Plan at upper level
7
PLAN

13. Plan at Lower level
Functions: Massage room, Rest space.

14. SECTIONS

15. EXTERIOR AND INTERIORVIEWS

16. “Materials react with one another and have their radiance, so that the
material composition gives rise to something unique. Material is endless”
The structure materials are natural: stone, water, metal and even
natural light penetrates the structure
Stone slabs
The energy of the place is very strong, not allowing its users to be very obvious, leaving
them in a ‘sleep’ mode, and at the same time, ready to be alert.
THE MATERIALS

17. ■
“In each of my works, each material has laid down its own laws...
Projects are born out of an idea, and in my case this idea is always
accompanied by a material. I can't imagine a method of design in
which the architect first decides on the form, and then on thematerials“
. – PETER ZUMTHOR.
SOURCE : http://www.floornature.com/projects-commerce/project-p-zumthor-swiss-pavilion-at-expo-2000-in-hanover-4

18. THE EXTERIOR
Sunk in the Hillside
The Grassed Roof
FEATURES OF BUILDING
A Secret Hideaway-
The Roof Panels Are
Extensively PlantedWith
Grass AndThereby
Integrate IntoThe
Landscape.
He was not allowed to build outwards, he sunk
the building into the hillside roofing his
structure with flat units of roof that match the
scenery perfectly.

19. Vals stones A Close Up view
It is the same material used for the roofs of the Vals village houses and it comes
straight from the mountain. These slabs make the building look strong, resistant,
even violent and rough, just like the alpine landscape.
VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE

20. The only façade the building has, is made out of these stones and interrupted by
wide openings and windows.
The symmetry of the exposed façade with the environment is unique but what
is also amazing is the fact that there are no doors in this façade!
FAÇADE OF THE BUILDING
MAIN ENTRANCE

21. Outdoor Pool & Mountain view
The concrete shell and the clean
lines of the volume come out of the
alpine landscape and the green
valley, creating equally natural and
impressive textures.
MOUNTAIN VIEW

22. The entrance In order to enter the spa, the
only way was from the
nearby hotel complex, using a
corridor through the
mountain. This dark corridor
really did the trick.
The spa building is made up
of 15 different table-
like units, 5 metres in
height,with cantilevered
concrete of units
supported by tie-beams.
ENTRANCE 15-DIFFERENTS UNITS

23. There are also gaps between
the roof units that allow lines
of light, making the feeling of
the heavy roof even lighter.
As the natural light is filtered
through these small gaps, it
creates the illusion that these
massive concrete ceilings are
floating in mid air.
The different rectangular
units reveal what is
revealed from the exterior:
the naïve and childish
design of different
rectangular and other
shapes that brick together
like a puzzle, better, like a
Tetris game!
The baths where the
water is hot, calm red
lighting is used and the
concrete walls are
tinted red; while where
the water is cold, the
lighting is blue.
NON-LINEAR DESIGNRED AND BLUE ROOMS THE ROOF HOLES

24. The staircase, the dark corridor and the fountain can be thought as these
aspects. The fact that there is no designated way of exploring the building
makes us feel that it is like a walk in the woods, where you do not have a
specific path, but you wander and discover.
NO SPECIFIC PATH TO WANDER
DRAMATIC STAIRCASE
THE MYSTERIOUS ATMOSPHERE
THE MYSTERY

25. NATURAL & ARTIFICIAL LIGHT
Zumthor testifies, light, either artificial or daylight, can help us feel a spiritual quality.
“I don’t understand light. It gives me the feeling that there’s something beyond
me, something beyond all understanding. And I am very glad, very grateful that
there is such a thing.” --- (Zumthor, 1998:55 ).
LIGHT GAME
THE GAME OF LIGHT AND SHADOW

26. THE BLOCKS WERE FORMED WITH 15-CENTIMETER-THICK PLATES, STACKED BY HANDS
THIS INTURN CONSIST OFTHREE LAYERS OF DIFFERENT THICKNESSES SLABS. THIS
ENABLED A SIMPLE CONSTRUCTION, ALTHOUGHTHE ARRANGEMENT OFTHE EYE
LOOKS RANDOM.
CONSTRUCTION DETAILS
CLADDING MODULES
The composite masonry
blocks are 60,000 cut to
one meter length slabs
(metamorphic rock
of feldspar, quartz and
mica formed).

27. •
The overhanging roof of the each units doesn’t coincide with each other it creates a
beautiful natural light effect in the building.
ROOF ASSEMBLY

28. The spa building is made up
of 15 different table-like
units, 5 metres in
height,with cantilevered
concrete of units supported
by tie-beams.

29. ROOF CONNECTION DETAIL

30. VERTICAL SECTION AND DETAIL

31. WALL SECTION AND DETAILS

32. Zumthor has written,
“a consciousness of time passing and an awareness of the human
lives that have been acted out in these places. At these moments,
architecture’s aesthetic and practical values, stylistic and historical
significance are of secondary importance. What matters now is
only the feeling of deep melancholy. Architecture is exposed to
life.”
ThankYou!!!