'Femme de Vals'

The luxury hotel is being proposed by 7132 Ltd, which is run by Stoffel and fellow Vals native Pius Truffer, who quarries the local Valser stone that covers the famous Therme Vals, designed by Peter Zumthor and completed in 1996. The company bought the baths and the adjacent hotel in 2012, though the latter has received only minor renovations since it was built in the 1960s, leading to the decisison to replace it with a tower.

In February of this year Stoffel and Truffer selected Thom Mayne's firm Morphosis in a controversial competition that saw members of the jury disassociating themselves from the decision. In addition to the proposed tower, the company is working with Japanese architect Tadao Ando on a nearby park; these commissions are "aiming at offering a subtler and more exclusive hotel experience" in the Swiss Alps according to a statement from the developer. How exclusive? According to the Guardian, the cheapest rooms will be around CHF1,000 (USD1,050) per night, while the most expensive will go for CHF25,000 (USD26,150)!

Mayne's design for the tower is being referred to by some as "Femme de Vals," since some of his inspiration stems from Giacometti's Femme de Venise, what the architect describes in a statement as "an elongated figure lift[ed] from its heavy base, a contrast which elevates the object into a masterpiece of drama and form." His proposal "uses these same sculptural qualities to create a powerful aesthetic experience for visitors."

But where Giacometti's famous sculpture is solid and opaque, Mayne's slender tower incorporates a reflective glass skin to "camouflage with the landscape, abstracting and displacing the valley and the sky." Further, the architect states that the guest rooms are lifted "high above the Valser Valley, [so] the hotel tower becomes a minimalist object connecting guests to nature."

The proposal consists of three parts: the podium, the cantilever and the tower. The first consists of the arrival and lobby, while the second contains the majority of the hotel's amenities (restaurant, bar, ballroom, gallery, and library), and the third houses the 107 guest rooms and suites and is topped by a five-story penthouse suite. All told, the hotel's gross area is 53,000 square meters (570,000 square feet).

The CHF300 million (USD312 million) tower is scheduled to be completed by 2019, but it still needs the approval of Vals residents and the government of the Graubünden canton, which would weigh in on the rezoning needed to erect a tower in the town of 1,000 residents. So the future of the tower is far from certain, not surprising given the audaciousness of such a proposal.

In lieu of the unofficial "Femme de Vals" moniker, some critics, like Swiss Foundation for Landscape Conservation (SL-FP) director Raimond Rodewald, are calling it a "tower of air." We will keep track of the project to see if it becomes more than just that.