Therme Vals, the spa complex built in the Swiss Alps by celebrated architect Peter Zumthor, became an icon of contemporary architecture soon after its opening in 1996. Inspired by the spa's majestic surroundings, Zumthor built the structure on the sharp grade of an Alpine mountain slope with grass-topped roofs to mimic Swiss meadows, captured here in a series of sumptuous images. This is the only book-length study of this singular building. It features the architects own original sketches and plans for its design as well as striking photographs of the structure. Architectural scholar Sigrid Hauser contributes an essay drawing out the connections between the elemental nature of the spa and mythology, bathing, and purity. Annotations by Peter Zumthor on his design concept and the building process elucidate the structure's symbiotic relationship to its natural surroundings, revealing, for example, why he insisted on using locally quarried stone.

The philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961) has influenced the design work of architects as diverse as Steven Holl and Peter Zumthor, as well as informing renowned schools of architectural theory, notably those around Dalibor Vesely at Cambridge, Kenneth Frampton, David Leatherbarrow and Alberto Pérez-Gómez in North America and Juhani Pallasmaa in Finland. Merleau-Ponty suggested that the value of people’s experience of the world gained through their immediate bodily engagement with it remains greater than the value of understanding gleaned through abstract mathematical, scientific or technological systems. This book summarizes what Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy has to offer specifically for architects. It locates architectural thinking in the context of his work, placing it in relation to themes such as space, movement, materiality and creativity, introduces key texts, helps decode difficult terms and provides quick reference for further reading.

While he was working to complete the Allmannajuvet Zinc Mine Museum in southern Norway in 2016, Swiss architect Peter Zumthor asked Norwegian architectural historian Mari Lending to engage in a dialogue about the project. In meandering, impressionistic style, and drawing on their favorite writers, such as Johann Peter Hebel, Stendhal, Nabokov, and T. S. Eliot, their exchanges explore how history, time, and temporalities reverberate across Zumthor's oeuvre. Looking back, Zumthor ponders on how a feeling of history has informed his attempts at emotional reconstruction by means of building, from architectural interventions in dramatic landscapes to his design for the redevelopment of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which conceived the building on a suitably grand urban scale. This small, beautifully designed book records the conversation between Zumthor and Lending, accompanied by photographs taken by the renowned Swiss architectural photographer H l ne Binet. The resulting book is a surprisingly revelatory view of one of the most interesting and restlessly creative architects of our era.

Timber is having a renaissance as an architectural material, as more architects come to understand its properties, and enjoy adding it to their repertoire of materials. With a growing crop of good new timber buildings, architects are coming to realise that this is no longer the sole preserve of the traditionalist, but a material that has an important role to play in the contemporary world. The book's introduction examines the ways in which a raw material of diminishing quality (but abundant quantity) can be 'stretched' to perform as it has never done before using new technology and careful detailing. The 40 case studies are devoted to some of the most interesting new wood projects from around the world. The projects are grouped in seven themed chapters. Featured architects from around the world include Steven Holl, Foster and Partners, Rural Studio, Renzo Piano and Shigeru Ban.

Peter Zumthor was selected to construct the Swiss Pavilion at the EXPO2000 in Hanover, and to this end, he created an unusual wood structure, the "Soundbodies" of Switzerland. Swiss architecture, music, the written word, fashion design and gastronomy are all drawn together to create a place to discover, to enjoy and to relax in.

It's not just you. Every architecture student is initially confused by architecture school - an education so different that it doesn't compare to anything else. A student’s joy at being chosen in stiff competition with many other applicants can turn to doubt when he or she struggles to understand the logic of the specific teaching method. Testimony from several schools of design and architecture in different countries indicates that many students feel disoriented and uncertain. This book will help you understand and be aware of: Specific working methods at architecture schools and in the critique process, so you'll feel oriented and confident. How to cope with uncertainty in the design process. How to develop the ability to synthesize the complexity of architecture in terms of function, durability, and beauty. This book is about how architects learn to cope with uncertainty and strive to master complexity. Special attention is given to criticism, which is an essential part of the design process. The author, a recipient of several educational awards, has written this book for architecture students and teachers, to describe how each student can adopt the architect's working method. Key concepts are defined throughout and references at the end of each chapter will point you to further reading so you can delve into topics you find particularly interesting. Jadwiga Krupinska is professor emerita at the School of Architecture of the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, Sweden.