Location: Chur, Graubünden, Switzerland
Architect: Peter Zumthor
Completed: 1986

14 Photographs

The whole visit to the Shelter Roman Archaeological Site in Chur was a somewhat uniquely Swiss experience. After visiting a small office near the train station and handing over 50 swiss francs as a key deposit, we ventured off up a hill and into the suburbs of Chur. Before too long, around another corner, and nestled between a series of wholly unremarkable Swiss suburban buildings (I can never quite tell what from what), we came across a simple, but familiar timber pavilion.

Entering the space with the loaned key, through a cantilevered steel portal, the darkness descends, and you step onto a series of suspended steel walkways that stretch between the pavilions and then down into each of the spaces. The whole thing is designed to be a lightweight covering over the footprints of the Roman ruins, protecting them, but allowing them to remain outdoors and untouched. Within these spaces, there is a series of information displays and a display cabinet displaying what are beautiful and no doubt likely priceless Roman artifacts.

While thoroughly impressed with what is an exquisite piece of simple, robust architecture, I was perhaps more impressed with the implicit trust of the Swiss authorities, who happily loaned a couple of disheveled rogue Australian architects a key to take a private tour of this place, all for the princely sum of 50 Swiss francs, which of course was promptly returned when we came back a few hours later.

I was pretty impressed with the little shelter.

HWLK

Further Reading:

Pritzker Prize 2009
ArchDaily
Atlas of Places
Apalmanac
arcspace
Archiweb