Swiss Lost Places: the Büvetta Tarasp drinking hall

The Büvetta Tarasp in 1939. SRF-SWI

Hotels, castles, railway stations or even entire industrial site: What happens to these places when they are no longer needed?

Swiss public television, SRF, went on a search around Switzerland to find these lost placesExternal link. We present part three of five.

Deep down in the Engadine valley lies the Büvetta Tarasp, a former drinking hall, spa and meeting space for the rich and famous from all over the world.

SRF-SWI

The name “Büvetta” stems from the Romansh language and Tarasp is a municipality in canton Graubünden, where the drinking hall is located. At its peak, the spa guests strolled through the magnificent, 70-metre-long lobby, enjoyed water from the highly mineralised Emerita, Lucius and Bonifacius springs served to them under the dome of the rotunda by the waiters.

The Büvetta Tarasp currently. SRF-SWI

Today, all one hears is the murmur of the flowing river. In the past, an orchestra of sounds from the spa could be heard as the fashionable and famous guests spent weeks recovering in the magnificent spa house and gathered for drinking cures in the Büvetta Tarasp.

The water from these springs were supposed to cure various diseases and help with weight loss. This was mostly because the water was consumed in large quantities and so had a strong laxative effect. The “gargle rooms”, or rooms in which a visitor rinsed their mouth with a water solution, and the restrooms were busy corners of the drinking hall.

Due to the danger of falling rocks, the Büvetta building has not been accessible since 2006. SRF-SWI

When the writer Friedrich Dürrenmatt visited the Tarasper springs with diabetes in the 1950s, these bathing and drinking cures had long since fallen out of fashion. The 1970s saw the end of such spa operations, and the Büvetta Tarasp drinking hall was shut down. Since 2018, the Büvetta Tarasp has been a listed as cultural heritage building.

Now the stone and plaster are crumbling. The lobby is scarred by cracks along the walls and chunks of stone that have fallen through the roof scatter the floor. But the Büvetta building is dreaming of returning to its past greatness and of being restored to its original grandeur. But the necessity for renovation grows increasingly urgent with each passing year.

The once imposing lobby of the Büvetta Tarasp drinking hall, is now a large construction site. SRF-SWI

Since 2012, the “Pro Büvetta Tarasp” association has been working to preserve and protect the historic drinking hall, with the aim of making the building open to the public in 2025 for its 150th anniversary. However, Before the rotunda and the lobby can be renovated, the banks by the riverbed must be fortified and the rock face above the Büvetta secured. The federal government, the canton and the municipality all support the renovation project. If everything goes according to plan, work on the restoration should begin in the summer of 2024.

The Lucius water spring has seen better days. SRF-SWI

The focus is on preserving the Büvetta and making the water sources accessible to the public again. In the future, the groups that support the renovation, hope that the building can be used for cultural programmes, as a venue for concerts, exhibitions or even events like weddings.

Factsheet Büvetta Tarasp

SRF-SWI

Location: Tarasp, Scuol, canton Graubünden

Year of construction: 1875-1876

Purpose: the Büvetta is a drinking hall of the former spa complex “Bad Tarasp”. It is the only remaining drinking hall from the time of fashionable spa tourism in Switzerland.

Abandoned since: the spa ceased operations in 1978/79. Since 2006, the Büvetta has no longer been open to the public due to the danger of falling rocks.