Spa Architecture

What is spa architecture?

Spa architecture is the group of bathhouses, colonnades, hotels, villas and parks built around mineral springs for treatment and recovery. In Slovakia the three examples used here are Piešťany, Trenčianske Teplice and Bardejovské Kúpele. The Slovak terms are kúpeľné domy (bathhouses) and kolonády (colonnades). The term describes a building type and a planning pattern, not a single style.

A spa is closer to a small town than to one building. The spa pages describe separate buildings and a park, not one block. At Bardejov the park register lists fountains, benches and colonnades in the entrance area of the park.

How old are the three Slovak spas?

People used the springs long before most of the buildings existed. The Bardejov spa park dates the first records of its mineral springs to the 13th century. It places the beginning of building there in the 17th century, when the town built an inn near the springs. It says the springs served for healing from 1768. At Trenčianske Teplice the first record of the hot springs dates to 1247. In 1835 the Viennese financier Juraj Sina bought the spa, then rebuilt and modernised it. At Piešťany, Ľudovít Winter was the builder of the spa.

The dated facts range from 13th-century spring records to the Piešťany bridge of the early 1930s. Table 1 lists the dated facts used here for each town.

Which building types make up a spa complex?

The sources describe separate buildings joined by a park. The components they name are:

• Bathhouses, the buildings that hold the bathing pools. At Trenčianske Teplice a bakery originally stood where the Sina pool is, and the manor house holds three thermal pools.
• Colonnades, which the Bardejov park register lists among the architecture of the park entrance.
• Assembly halls, such as the Kursalon at Piešťany. The main office of the Balneological Museum, founded in 1928, is in this Spa Hall.
• Villas and medical houses. At Bardejov the register names the villas Szecsényi (1893), Deák (1895) and Alžbeta (1897).
• Parks and fountains, which form the outdoor setting of the complex.

The Bardejov park register calls the spa park one of the oldest spa parks in Slovakia. It calls Tahy dvor, built in 1777, the oldest spa object there. The Trenčianske Teplice spa calls its Moorish-style Hammam the most precious historical monument preserved to this day. These are statements by the spas and registers. They are not formal heritage designations.

Which styles do the spa buildings show?

Spa architecture is a building type, while historicism and the Vienna Secession are styles. The spa pages used here name only one style, the Moorish style of the Trenčianske Teplice Hammam. They otherwise describe buildings by purpose and date. For a later functionalist building in a spa, see Czechoslovak Functionalism. Do not assign a style to a spa building without a survey or a published description of that building.

How are spa buildings protected today?

In Slovakia the protection of historic buildings and areas rests on Act No. 49/2002 Z. z. on the protection of the heritage fund. Under § 2(1) the heritage fund is the set of movable and immovable things declared national cultural monuments, plus heritage reserves and heritage zones. Things in a declaration procedure also count. Under § 17(1) a heritage zone is a territory that can be marked out topographically. It has a historic settlement layout, a cultural landscape with heritage values, or archaeological finds. Under § 29(1) state administration bodies and territorial self-government bodies protect a heritage territory together with the property owners.

Table 2 sums up the three provisions.

Protection therefore depends on a declaration for each object or area. The spa pages reviewed describe their historic buildings in detail but name no formal listing. Check a spa building with the heritage office before any change. For the process, see heritage authority consent. For the status of a declared object, see listed building.

What are the common misconceptions about spa architecture?

• Every spa building is protected. Protection depends on a declaration or a zone, so check each object.
• One style covers all spas. The three towns have different owners and dates, so their buildings differ.
• An old spa is the same as a listed spa. A spa can call a building the most precious monument without a formal listing.
• The park is decoration. At Bardejov the park register lists the fountains and colonnades as architecture of the park.

How should an architect approach a spa building today?

Start with the dated record: the spa's own history, the park register and the protection status of each object. Keep what the sources state apart from what a survey of the building shows. Where a building stands in a historic park or complex, ask the heritage office whether the layout, paths and planting also fall under protection.