Peter Zumthor’s Shelter for the Roman Archaeological Site in Chur protects the in situ remains of Roman buildings through three timber lamella enclosures that translate archaeological footprints into contemporary architectural volumes. Built between 1985 and 1986, the project combines conservation, exhibition, and urban presence through a restrained system of filtered light, raised circulation, and naturally ventilated construction.
Shelter for the Roman Archaeological Site Technical Information
- ArchitectsPeter Zumthor
- LocationSeilerbahnweg, Welschdorfli Quarter, Chur, Canton of Graubunden, Switzerland
- Gross AreaNot specified
- Project Years1985 – 1986
- Photographs© Trevor Patt, © Pol Martin
Architecture is exposed to life. If its body is sensitive enough, it can assume a quality that bears witness to past life.
– Peter Zumthor
Archaeology as Urban Footprint
The shelter occupies a modest site in the Welschdorfli quarter of Chur, where excavations uncovered remains associated with Curia Raetorum, the Roman settlement from which the city takes its name. What was found did not constitute architecture in the conventional sense of standing walls and enclosed rooms. The evidence consisted mainly of foundations, floor traces, charred timber, and fragments of painted plaster. Zumthor’s task was therefore not to house a complete building but to give spatial legibility to the partial record of one.
The project responds by tracing the excavated footprints of two Roman buildings and the corner of a third. These outlines are raised into three contemporary timber volumes, neither replicas nor neutral covers. Their geometry is archaeological, while their construction is explicitly modern. This distinction is central to the work: the shelter gives mass and scale to remains that survive primarily as horizontal information, yet it avoids the fiction of reconstructing lost elevations, openings, or domestic interiors.
By preserving the ruins in situ, the project treats archaeology as part of the contemporary city rather than as an artifact displaced into a museum. The timber forms sit along the street as quiet urban figures, marking the buried Roman plan within the fabric of present-day Chur. The result is a form of conservation that is also a form of urban notation, making the ground itself the primary exhibit.
Timber Lamellae, Light, and Atmosphere
The enclosure is formed with horizontal larch lamellae, closely spaced to create permeable walls. These timber bands keep out direct rain and snow while allowing air and light to pass through. The interior is not sealed from the environment; instead, it remains close to outdoor conditions, moderated by shade, roof cover, and ventilation. This decision gives the building its particular status as neither open ruin nor conventional museum room.
Light enters in several registers. The lamella walls produce fine horizontal bands along the interior surfaces, while colored metal skylights introduce controlled illumination from above. Dark backing materials behind the Roman foundations heighten the contrast between archaeological fragments and the new enclosure. The eye moves between warm timber, black surfaces, exposed stone, gravel, steel, and the muted geometry of the roof. The atmosphere is subdued without becoming theatrical, shaped by restraint rather than display.
The material hierarchy is clear. Larch, steel, concrete, glass, and metal roof elements are part of the late-twentieth-century intervention. Masonry, plaster, burnt timber, and floor remnants belong to the Roman layer. The building does not blend these categories. It separates them with enough precision that the visitor can read the site as an accumulation of time, in which each material carries its own date, technique, and state of survival.
Movement, Threshold, and Controlled Access
The public face of the shelter features large glazed openings that correspond to the presumed entrances of Roman houses, yet these are not used as actual entry points. Instead, access is shifted to a projecting metal portal on the side facade. This displacement changes the act of arrival. The visitor does not simply walk through a reconstructed doorway; entry occurs through a contemporary appendage that acknowledges the distance between present use and archaeological past.
Inside, circulation is organized by a suspended steel footbridge that runs through the three enclosures. The walkway keeps visitors above the excavated floors for most of the route, protecting fragile surfaces while establishing a measured sequence of viewing. Movement alternates between exposure and compression as the bridge passes through larger rooms and darker connecting passages. From this raised position, the ruins are seen as spatial fields rather than isolated objects.
Short metal stairs provide controlled descent to the archaeological level. These moments of contact are limited and specific, which gives them interpretive weight. Standing on or near the Roman ground becomes an event within the sequence, not the default condition of the visit. The project, therefore, turns circulation into a conservation instrument, using choreography to regulate proximity, attention, and physical impact.
Structure as Conservation Strategy
The timber enclosures rest on concrete footings aligned with the perimeter of the Roman buildings. This structural placement minimizes disturbance to the excavated layers and reinforces the conceptual link between the ancient footprint and the new volume. The shelters behave as lightweight frames rather than heavy protective shells, with the lamella screens acting as environmental filters rather than sealed walls.
The suspended walkway is the most technically specific element in the composition. Conceived as a deep Pratt-type truss, it spans above the archaeological ground and bears only at perimeter points, avoiding intermediate supports within the excavated rooms. This structural decision is not merely formal. It keeps the Roman floors free from new columns and footings, allowing the archaeological field to remain visually and physically continuous beneath the visitor’s path.
The environmental strategy follows the same logic of minimal intervention. The interiors are unconditioned, naturally ventilated, and daylit, avoiding the layered complexity of a sealed museum envelope. Protection is achieved through roof cover, filtered walls, controlled access, and careful separation between the new structure and historic remains. In this sense, the building’s construction is inseparable from its curatorial role: structure, atmosphere, and conservation operate as one architectural system.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Other contributors: August Fischer, collaborator engineer
- Other contributors: Trevor Patt, photographs
- Other contributors: Pol Martin for arcspace, photographs
- Other contributors: ArcDog, film documentation
