Spa architecture

Spa buildings are used for recreation and leisure activities and are to be found in spas. The architecture of this building is also known as spa architecture, even if it is not a uniform architectural style, but a collective term for a type of building with the function of cure.

The building type was developed since the 17th century, its heyday was the 19th century. The term spa architecture refers primarily to the architecture of the spas in Midland, for the seaside resorts on the coast, the term resort architecture has prevailed. Between the architectural style of the spas and seaside resorts there since the early 19th century, many parallels.

Early precursors in Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Resorts already existed in ancient times. They owe their existence to the medical effect of the hot springs, which was already known at that time. At the center of Roman spas were thermal baths, which were less symmetrical than the great imperial baths in the cities usually because they had to adapt to the particular topography of the hot spring area. The most important Roman spa was Baiae in the Gulf of Naples. In Germany, resorts Aachen, Wiesbaden, Baden -Baden, Badenweiler were founded in the first century AD. In Switzerland, St. Moritz witnessed discovered by Paracelsus spa the first boom.

After this heyday it was in Europe quiet about the spa industry. Elaborate baths like in ancient Roman times, there was not the Middle Ages. The Crusaders brought from the Orient with the Islamic bathing culture. With the rise of the bourgeoisie in the cities in the 12th century public bath houses, but no architectural language brought forth and indistinguishable from the outside of homes were created. The Thirty Years' War ended the great era of the bath industry.

Upswing

The spa industry experienced a boom in the 15th and 16th century and became an important economic factor.

As the spa industry grew in importance in the second half of the 17th century, the drinking cure became fashionable at the site of the former spa treatment. Could a health resort with this development does not keep pace and perform costly structural changes, he sank down to the poor or Bauernbad. Significant ancient foundations such as Baden- Baden and Wiesbaden were affected.

In the Baroque period there was the Duke baths important new trends. The examples are to be found in the palace. The best preserved example in Germany is Brückenau. Prince Bishop Amand von Buseck built this place from 1747. On a terraced hill about three kilometers from the city Kurhaus was built. On the castle-like building in the valley leads a central axis in the form of a framed pavilions lime avenue to. Model for the system was Brückenauer Castle Marly- le -Roi, the pleasure palace built in 1679 to 1687, Louis XIV.

The most important spa towns of the 18th century are not the relatively small prince baths, but Bath in England and Aachen. Both cities have a crucial role in the development of spa architecture in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The spa industry in Aachen recovered since the late 17th century by the consequences of the Thirty Years' War. Had a decisive influence on the spa doctor François Blondel, who introduced his balneologic books Aachen as a spa resort in Europe. Blondel's most important achievements was to develop the drinking cure and its participation in the design of new health facilities.

Aachen has become the leading Modebad of the continent, claiming that position until the French occupation at the end of the 18th century. The most important spa buildings of the 18th century is the " New Redoute ", which was built in 1782-1786 by architect Jakob Couven. As a center of social life, the building is a direct precursor of the 19th century, widespread type of spa.

Heyday 19th century

The public construction projects experienced since about 1800 generally greater differentiation. This covered a considerable extent monuments for social events. In the resorts there was a concentration of buildings for education, communication and leisure for the large number of guests. It created specific construction tasks such as spa, pump room and spa bath. There were landscaped gardens, hotels and villas, but also of theaters, museums, cable cars and Towers.

The spa architecture underwent a greater specialization in the 19th century. The spa building united, not all tasks such as lounges, bathrooms and lodging rooms under one roof, as was customary mostly in the Baroque. The Kurhaus of the 19th century is a building that is designed exclusively for social events. Baths and lodging rooms are outsourced in specially built for this purpose bathhouses and hotels. In the center of the Spa House is a large and representative hall. There are also several side rooms for a variety of tasks, such as gaming, reading and restaurant.

The first spa new type was not obtained in the Kurhaus Wiesbaden by Christian Zais, written from 1808 to 1810. The oldest is the Kurhaus Baden-Baden Kurhaus, built in 1822-24 according to plans of the Grand Ducal building director Friedrich Weinbrenner. The three -part structure has a length of 140 meters. The building consists of a large central hall building. In the north and south of this is flanked by pavilions for the theater and restaurant. Between these three major building structures that stand out clearly in the plan, there are galleries.

Trinkhallen emerged from the wells, which were common after the introduction of the drinking cure in the Baroque. These offered to spa guests the opportunity to fill their cups with thermal water. Thermal wells there were in the 17th century in all German spa towns. About the fountain originated pavilions. Towards the end of the 18th century there was a new development. The fountain houses were extended by Gallery tracts. In the 19th century Pump Room was a well-known building type.

Large thermal baths originated in Germany especially after the gambling ban in 1872. The spa towns invested in bathhouses, in order to remain attractive for spa guests. The most important thermal baths this time, the Friedrichsbad in Baden- Baden, which was designed by Karl Dern field. Direct models are the Raitzenbad in Budapest and the Graf- Eberhardsbad (now Palais Thermal) in Bad Wildbad.

A stylistic transition from the 19th to the 20th century forms the largest connected with the fountain hall closed Wandelhalle Europe ( 3,240 square feet) in the Bavarian town of Bad Kissingen. It was built by order of the Prince Regent Luitpold in the years 1910/1911 by architect Max Littmann.

20th century

The Sozialkur and changing travel behavior of people required new architectural solutions in the 20th century.

The first examples of a modern spa architecture there in the 1930s. Among the earliest representatives of the New Objectivity counts the New Pump Room in Bad Wildbad, who planned Reinhold Schuler, building officer in the Württemberg Ministry of Finance, and Otto Kuhn, president of the Construction Department of the Treasury, 1933. However, the neo-classical conception of art of the Nazi regime prevented further dissemination.

After 1945, for the genera Kurhaus, Pump Room and Spa - apart from a few outstanding individual solutions ( spa in Badenweiler by Klaus Humpert, 1970-72, for example ) - does not develop successors in the true sense.