While we're on the topic...

  

My first SOM trip was to Switzerland, where I, of course, went on a Zumthor tour. We spent our last day in Switzerland here at the Thermal Baths in Vals, which was perfect for two reasons: 1. it's the Thermal Baths, and 2. I had spent the previous day bouncing down the Alps with skis attached to my feet, so sitting in hot baths was just the ticket for my aching bones.

I was prepared for the approach to the Baths architecturally - all the books explain how you enter from below - but I really think the approach begins miles away, as one drives up the winding 1.5 lane road, snowsheds overhead, mineral water trucks barreling down the mountain, and curve after curve carved into the side of the mountains. After being thusly prepped, the Baths seemed like one more snowshed - a construction of the surrounding landscape. 

The Baths themselves have already been expounded upon by others better equipped with archi-speak than I, so I will just say that they're right, but you have to see it for yourself. Not just see it of course, but touch it, hear it, smell it, and even taste it. The whole building is a registrator and facilitator of human form and sense: the rectilinearity of the architecture against the sinuous forms of bodies [walking, standing, sitting, reclining, swimming]; the laughter or shrieks of surprise [some of that water is cold] echoing and bouncing around the cavernous interior; the smell of flowers, or hot stone, or copper-infused water; the sounds of water [lapping, overflowing, filling, draining, steaming, evaporating] or even pieces of music composed specifically for spaces within the baths; the taste of the water; the site of Alps out the window and the wet footprints on the stone floors. The experience was completely magical, and the architecture was so quietly making it all happen, from the exalted [the Alps] to the mundane [the handrails].

Would that all buildings could be so closely tied to, and inspired by, their contexts, utility, and the senses.