Mario Botta

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

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

Buildings in modern cities have lost their metaphoric aspect. Much contemporary architecture is very fragmented and busy on the outside. It's like a skin or a skull, but you don't know what's inside.

In 1996, I took advantage of some favourable circumstances to propose to the state of the Ticino Canton the foundation of the Academy of Architecture and, with it, an Italian-speaking university in Switzerland.

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

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

To me it was fascinating, the idea of going to university and studying a subject - architecture - that I had already faced in building some small houses.

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