Mario Botta

To me it was fascinating, the idea of going to university and studying a subject - architecture - that I had already…

— Mario Botta

Buildings in modern cities have lost their metaphoric aspect. Much contemporary architecture is very fragmented and busy on the outside. It's like…

— Mario Botta

I wanted to design a museum in which everything would seem clear.

— Mario Botta

The architect aspires to build in a city as the artist aspires to exhibit his works in a museum.

— Mario Botta

It was very useful to learn the history, the theory, and the art of building from a practical background.

— Mario Botta

There is great mystery in a church. For me, there is a great privilege to be confronted with the design of a…

— Mario Botta

Church architecture describes visually the idea of the sacred, which is a fundamental need of man.

— Mario Botta

Architecture is the constant fight between man and nature, the fight to overwhelm nature, to possess it. The first act of architecture…

— Mario Botta

Great architecture of the past was always clear. SFMOMA is still a simple building to understand.

— Mario Botta

For me, architecture is not just creating a space to protect people but to make them dream as well.

— Mario Botta

There's no point in us designing synthetic laboratories that could just as well be in Dusseldorf or Helsinki. San Francisco has its…

— Mario Botta

I want to modernize the ancient. I prefer to work with materials formed naturally over thousands of years.

— Mario Botta

The architect works in the territory of memory.

— Mario Botta

The Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio comes from afar. Our land has a millennial history of emigrations: master masons, architects, builders, decorators,…

— Mario Botta

Artificial light is used because you can control it better. Technically, it is more homogeneous, more delicate, and less damaging to artwork.…

— Mario Botta

A museum is a spiritual place. People lower their voices when they get close to art.

— Mario Botta

The first gesture of an architect is to draw a perimeter; in other words, to separate the microclimate from the macro space…

— Mario Botta

In 1996, I took advantage of some favourable circumstances to propose to the state of the Ticino Canton the foundation of the…

— Mario Botta