A Stanislavskian and Barthesian deconstructive analysis of Thinking Architecture of Peter Zumthor: The case of Therme Vals

Abstract

In 21st-century architectural literature, Therme Vals stands out for its spatialization of theory and art. This study is based on the thesis that Therme Vals is structured under the influence of Roland Barthes' five codes and Konstantin Stanislavski's The Method of Physical Actions (1934-1938). In this context, Peter Zumthor's narratives about the atmosphere chapters in Thinking Architecture are analyzed with strategies based on Barthes' textual decoding in S/Z, and Stanislavskian perspectives in these narratives are revealed. The trilogy of space-action-text, as a diagrammatic representation of discourses, forms the theoretical foundations of the methodology. Through qualitative research within the framework of structural narrative analysis, this study deconstructs Barthes' principles of semantic plurality and Stanislavski's The Method of Physical Actions (1934-1938) through the architectural codes of the Therme Vals and atmosphere chapters. The analysis of 17 semantic units yielded 190 poductive terms, of which 59 are unique and 131 are repetitive, as well as principles of clustered effects. The results support Zumthor's view in Thinking Architecture that architecture operates not as a narrative but as a text open to multiple interpretations. (c) 2025 The Authors. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/).