Brewing new from the old in Zürich

I saw this story on Architizer, and my heart fell through the floor. It's still unbelievable to me that we will not be going to Switzerland this winter and spending at least one night in Zürich before pushing on to the village we have gone to for the past 7 years to ski. And now I'm doubly despondent because the new Thermal Bad & Spa has opened in the former Hürlimann brewery, a 100-year-old building with vaulted spaces and exposed stone and brick walls and ceilings.

I'll quote from Architizer's blog post here because it tells an interesting story:

"Zürich is commonly thought to be the work of the Romans, who laid the town’s first foundations sometime around 800AD. In fact, Zürich was first settled by the Celts, who came south from Gaul to develop a trade network throughout most of modern-day continental Europe. Some historians even go so far as to say that the city’s name is derived from the Celtic word for water, dur, referential to lake and the hot springs that lie below the urban fabric."

Certainly, this building has nothing really to do with Modern architecture. But I'm writing about it because it's about re-purposing a space instead of tearing it down, a concept of great importance to me that isn't too distant from one of the qualities I prize in original Modernism: being true to the environment a building is to exist in.

Besides, I needed an excuse to post something about that rooftop pool . . . pretty fantastic!

Whenever I'm so lucky to be back in Zürich, I will definitely spend a few hours here. – GF

via Knstrct and Architizer