A worldwide career
Describing the career of a personality like Mario Botta in a few lines is necessarily a reducing exercise. Born in Mendrisio in 1943, after an apprenticeship in Lugano, he attended the Art School in Milan and continued his studies at the University of Architecture in Venice, where he graduated in 1969 with the tutors Carlo Scarpa and Giuseppe Mazzariol. In Venice he had the opportunity to meet Le Corbusier and Louis I. Kahn and to work for them. In 1970 he opened his own studio in Lugano. In 1976 he was appointed visiting professor at the Polytechnic of Lausanne and in 1987 at the Yale School of Architecture in New Haven (USA). Since 1983 he has been a title professor at the Swiss Polytechnic Schools, and from 1982 to 1987 a member of the Federal Commission of Fine Arts. Countless international prizes and awards as well as honorary doctorates. Mario Botta is, among other things, the creator of the Academy of Architecture and the Theater of Architecture by Mendrisio.
Since the first realizations of single-family houses in Ticino, his work has encompassed many types of buildings all over the world. Some examples: the MOMA Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco; the Cathedral of the Resurrection in Evry; the Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel; the Cymbalista Synagogue in Tel Aviv; the city library in Dortmund; the Dürrenmatt Center in Neuchâtel; the Kyobo Tower and the Leeum Museum in Seoul; the Tata Consultancy Services administrative buildings in New Delhi and Hyderabad; the renovation of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; the Tschuggen Berg Oase wellness center in Arosa; the Campari headquarters and residences in Sesto San Giovanni; the Tsinghua University Library in Beijing; the twelve at the Hengshan Hotel in Shanghai; the Art Museum of Tsinghua University in Beijing; the Fiore di Pietra restaurant on Monte Generoso. ■