Therme Vals (7132 Therme)

Vals's warm mineral spring was tapped in 1891, and the "Kurhaus Therme", with sixty beds and a bathhouse, opened in the summer of 1893. The German mineral-water specialist Kurt Vorlop acquired the Kurhaus along with the springs in 1960. From 1962 he had a new spa centre built, with the infrastructure of a hotel and 345 spa apartments that were sold to private buyers; it was handed over for operation in May 1970.

Concerned for the future of spa operations, the municipality purchased the spa hotel in 1983 from what was then the Union Bank of Switzerland. In the end it was the architect Peter Zumthor who designed a new bath on the municipality's behalf, his brief being to bring a sense of well-being to a wild and rugged mountain valley. The baths opened on 14 December 1996. Since 2022 a foundation has carried them; its board includes Peter Zumthor.

The bath is built into the slope, on the spot where the mineral thermal spring comes out of the ground; the water leaves the spring at 30 °C. Monolithic, the building joins rough concrete with blocks of Vals stone, and the stone of the facades, outside and inside, comes from the surrounding area.

Grey stone walls are set against bronze railings. The horizontal joints of the stonework echo the lines of the water, and the texture of the stone changes at the waterline; skylights set into narrow slits in the ceiling draw a line of light.

The building returns to the original experience of bathing: contact with stone and with water at different temperatures, with scents, sounds and the ritual of the bath. One does not move through a wellness landscape here; one meets the elemental side of water, of its temperatures, of pools and rooms of different sizes, in a reduction to the essential. In 2009 the Pritzker Prize jury named the "mineral mist" of the thermal baths at Vals among the works that show Zumthor's approach.

The baths are a working thermal bath, open to outside visitors for day admission, booked in advance.

Entry is with a bathing ticket, to be booked in advance in the baths' online ticket shop: places are limited. You arrive within the time slot you booked, then may stay until closing. The baths offer no separate guided tours: the building can only be seen with a valid bathing ticket. Children are admitted from the age of 6, accompanied by adults.