The 'Therme Vals', the exceptional building for a thermal bath in the Swiss mountain spa of Vals by the celebrated Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, became an icon of contemporary Swiss and international architecture within a very short time after its opening in 1996. Literally built, in places, into the ground of an alpine valley, the Therme has grown together with the history and the rock and soil of its location. The gneiss stone for the covering of the façade and the inner walls of the building comes from a nearby quarry.

Reduction to the essential is the leading principle behind the design. Visitors should experience the elemental nature of water, of different temperatures and various dimensions of basins and rooms.

Peter Zumthor Therme Vals, the only book-length study of the mountain spa, features the architect’s own original sketches and plans for its design, as well as Hélène Binet’s striking photographs of the structure. Annotations by Zumthor elucidate Therme Vals’s symbiotic relationship to its natural surroundings
It also features an essay on such topics as Artemis/Diana, Baptism, and Spring by architectural scholar Sigrid Hauser drawing out the connections between the elemental nature of the spa and mythology, bathing, and purity.

This lavishly illustrated volume about the spa that catapulted a remote Swiss village onto the international architecture scene will entrance all enthusiasts of contemporary design.

The 'Therme Vals', the exceptional building for a thermal bath in the Swiss mountain spa of Vals by the celebrated Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, became an icon of contemporary Swiss and international architecture within a very short time after its opening in 1996. Literally built, in places, into the ground of an alpine valley, the Therme has grown together with the history and the rock and soil of its location. The gneiss stone for the covering of the façade and the inner walls of the building comes from a nearby quarry.

Reduction to the essential is the leading principle behind the design. Visitors should experience the elemental nature of water, of different temperatures and various dimensions of basins and rooms.

Peter Zumthor Therme Vals, the only book-length study of the mountain spa, features the architect’s own original sketches and plans for its design, as well as Hélène Binet’s striking photographs of the structure. Annotations by Zumthor elucidate Therme Vals’s symbiotic relationship to its natural surroundings
It also features an essay on such topics as Artemis/Diana, Baptism, and Spring by architectural scholar Sigrid Hauser drawing out the connections between the elemental nature of the spa and mythology, bathing, and purity.

This lavishly illustrated volume about the spa that catapulted a remote Swiss village onto the international architecture scene will entrance all enthusiasts of contemporary design.


Born in 1943, famed architect Peter Zumthor studied at the College of Applied Arts in Basel and the Pratt Institute in New York. In 2009, he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize for his life’s work, which includes the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, and Kolumba Art Museum in Cologne, Germany. His Therme Vals, the spa complex built into a Swiss Alp mountainside, became an icon of contemporary architecture soon after its opening in 1996.