Mario Botta

Mario Botta (born 1 April 1943) is a Swiss architect.

Mario Botta
Mario Botta at Swiss Embassy in New Delhi in 2010
Born (1943-04-01) April 1, 1943
Mendrisio, Switzerland
NationalitySwiss
OccupationArchitect
BuildingsNational Bank of Greece, Athens
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, Charlotte, NC
Santa Maria degli Angeli, Monte Tamaro, Switzerland

Career

Botta designed his first building, a two-family house at Morbio Superiore in Ticino, at age 16. He graduated from the Università Iuav di Venezia (1969).[1] While the arrangements of spaces in this structure is inconsistent, its relationship to its site, separation of living from service spaces, and deep window recesses echo of what would become his stark, strong, towering style. His designs tend to include a strong sense of geometry, often being based on very simple shapes, yet creating unique volumes of space. His buildings are often made of brick, yet his use of material is wide, varied, and often unique.

His trademark style can be seen widely in Switzerland particularly the Ticino region and also in the Mediatheque in Villeurbanne (1988), a cathedral in Évry (1995), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art or SFMOMA (1994). He also designed the Europa-Park Dome, which houses many major events at the Europa-Park theme park resort in Germany. Religious works by Botta, including the Cymbalista Synagogue and Jewish Heritage Center were shown in London at the Royal Institute of British Architects in an exhibition entitled, Architetture del Sacro: Prayers in Stone.[2] “A church is the place, par excellence, of architecture,” he said in an interview with architectural historian Judith Dupré. “When you enter a church, you already are part of what has transpired and will transpire there. The church is a house that puts a believer in a dimension where he or she is the protagonist. The sacred directly lives in the collective. Man becomes a participant in a church, even if he never says anything.”[3]

In 1998, he designed the new bus station for Vimercate (near Milan), a red brick building linked to many facilities, underlining the city's recent development. He worked at La Scala's theatre renovation, which proved controversial as preservationists feared that historic details would be lost.[4][5]

In 2004, he designed Museum One of the Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea.[6] On January 1, 2006, he received the Grand Officer award from President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi. In 2006, he designed his first ever spa, the Bergoase Spa in Arosa, Switzerland. The spa opened in December 2006 and cost an estimated CHF 35 million. Mario Botta participated in the Stock Exchange of Visions project in 2007. He was a member of the Jury of the Global Holcim Awards in 2012. In 2014, he was awarded with the Prize Javier Carvajal by the Universidad de Navarra.[7]

One of Botta's less-known works is the NBG Insurance Headquarters complex in Athens, Greece, completed in 2006, which represents a collaboration with Rena Sakellaridou and Morfo Papanikolaou of SPARCH architecture. The office complex features two solid forms arranged around a public square, facilitating views of the nearby Acropolis, and an atrium filled with glass skywalks. The project, which lies substantially underground so as to minimize the impact on the urban fabric, emphasizes movement and light by transforming masses to voids.[8] Sakellaridou highlights that the project is typical of Botta's style in its symmetry, geometry, and solid form.[9] The collaboration of Botta and Sakellaridou is notable in that the latter paid tribute to the former in her book Mario Botta: Architectural Poetics; regarding his design oeuvre, she writes: "Botta continuously invents what is a strong possibility in the vast universe of unrealized architectural probability."[10]

References
  1. "About Botta". www.botta.ch.
  2. Jonathan Glancey, Spirit in the skylight, The Guardian, 19 December 2005
  3. Judith Dupré, “Interview with Mario Botta,” Churches (New York: HarperCollins, 2001): 16.
  4. Riding, Alan (2004-12-05). "La Scala Proudly Emerges From a Drama of Its Own". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2022-05-02.
  5. "Critics say restoration has ruined La Scala". the Guardian. 2002-12-10. Retrieved 2022-05-02.
  6. CNN Go Seoul's best museums Archived 2012-09-28 at the Wayback Machine 27 October 2011. Retrieved 2011-11-04
  7. Bonell, Esteve (2014-01-01). "Premio Javier Carvajal 2014: Mario Botta: tres momentos de una trayectoria profesional". Ra. Revista de Arquitectura (in Spanish) (16): 87–91. doi:10.15581/014.16.905. hdl:10171/38068. S2CID 127904319.
  8. "NBG Insurance Headquarters". SPARCH. Retrieved August 3, 2023.
  9. "OHA virtual tours: NBG Insurance Headquarters". Open House Athens. Jun 26, 2021. Retrieved August 4, 2023.
  10. Sakellaridou, Rena (2000). Mario Botta: Architectural Poetics. New York: Universe Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 978-0789305466.

Sources
  • Markus Breitschmid (ed.), Architecture and the Ambient – Mario Botta. Architectura et Ars Series, Volume 2, Virginia Tech Architecture Publications, 2013. ISBN 978-0-9893936-5-2
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