Mario Botta, Casa rotonda, Stabio, Ticino, Switzerland, 1982

Mario Botta, Casa rotonda, Stabio, Ticino, Switzerland, 1982

Mario Botta, Casa rotonda, Stabio, Ticino, Switzerland, 1982 (view from google)

In the postscript to his book, Mario Botta says: “Writing about architecture, seeing the ideas into print, calls for a reversal of accustomed attitudes. Speaking about architecture or a building really means breaking up the individual phases of the design through which the scheme was put together. Making architecture means constructing a design in a series of phases. I am rather embarrassed when I see the pictorial contents compiled here to illustrate the construction of the Casa Rotonda. Probably this is caused by precisely that process of reversal. A single-family house on the edge of a village, the situation governed by building regulations; the land-use plan for the village round the historic core; the network of footpaths that develop into transport routes; the pattern of the fields and vineyards, designated as building land. In this context, I was requested to design a single-family house on a small site at the northern tip of a new residential area. I conceived a building with a circular plan; and along the north-south ­axis, I set a shaft through which light could enter from above. A building structure on three levels, a kind of tower; or rather, an object carved out of itself. The intention was to avoid any comparison – and any contrast – with the neighbouring developments, creating instead a spatial link with the distant landscape and the horizon.

 

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botta-1981-casa rotonda-02

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References:

detail

Reviewed by:

Alexandra Niedermayr, Alexandre Maurel, Martin Charachon, Sonja Schneider (March 2017)