Although remote, this hostel has little to do with the simple life in the countryside: The 7132 Hotel has opened next to Peter Zumthor’s thermal spa in Vals – with luxurious guest rooms specially designed by and for (star) architects.
Although remote, this hostel has little to do with the simple life in the countryside: The 7132 Hotel has opened next to Peter Zumthor’s thermal spa in Vals – with luxurious guest rooms specially designed by and for (star) architects.
It is said that ingenious architectural designs are sometimes created on napkins. What is certain, however, is that the thermal baths in Vals had already been built out of words before they were realized: “You have to build something,” Peter Zumthor had assured the Graubünden community, “that doesn’t exist yet. Not glass fun. But a thermal spa that is unique.” It was opened in 1996 – and the building, which is set into the slope, is made of concrete and 60,000 strips of Vals quartzite in three thicknesses, two widths and each 3.20 meters long.
The iron-rich water has dyed the wall at the entrance a rusty red, where it flows unfiltered. Otherwise, the thermal baths, which were listed as a historical monument just two years after they were completed, do not show their age; 190 people still book a few hours every day to bathe in the magnificent architecture and in water that is between 14 and 35 degrees and rich in calcium sulphate hydrogen carbonate. The spa architecture has won countless awards, but unfortunately its figures have never been as black as the quartzite from which it is built. Peter Zumthor would have liked to take over the spa himself, but the cash-strapped municipality narrowly opted for a buyer who promised to take over not only the spa but also the surrounding hotel and apartment buildings from the 1960s and turn them into a four-star hotel: the four-star “House of Architects” and the five-star superior hotel “7132” – incidentally the zip code of Vals. Guests can not only bathe in luxury, but also live, eat and travel in luxury – the restaurant at the 7132 has been awarded two Michelin stars and 18 Gault Millau points. And the price of the penthouse suites includes arrival in the hotel’s own helicopter.
The renovation began in 2012: Thom Mayne made the entrance area look a bit like the Guggenheim in New York and, like Tadao Ando, Kengo Kuma and Peter Zumthor, who had already designed so-called “Provisorien” for the opening of the thermal spa in the old spa hotel, transformed the shoebox rooms into suitably chic “rooms for architects”. The “Star” architects were not able to enlarge the 73 guest rooms, which are just 20 square meters in size; only for the suites in 7132 were several of the shoe boxes combined. But there was obviously enough room for a very different design: Zumthor immersed his rooms in bright red and black Stucco Lustro. Thom Mayne also opted for black: he wallpapered the walls, floor and ceiling with Vals quartzite and brightened up the gloom with a neon yellow bath egg. While Kengo Kuma and Tadao Ando worked minimalistically, as expected: Kuma implanted his rooms with a wooden cocoon made of oak, Ando focuses on not distracting from the view. Guests are now spoiled for choice.
The article about the 7132 hotel was published in Baumeister 05/2020.
