Mario Botta Overview

Mario Botta apprenticed with acclaimed Modernist architect Louis I. Kahn before developing his own style of Neo-Realism -- a kind of Postmodern Classicism that invents its own orders. He ditches the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian forms of old for a layering... [more]

Mario Botta apprenticed with acclaimed Modernist architect Louis I. Kahn before developing his own style of Neo-Realism -- a kind of Postmodern Classicism that invents its own orders. He ditches the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian forms of old for a layering of colors, textures, materials, and elements from disparate historical styles. Always candid about the irony inherent in Postmodern Classicism, Botta slams together contradictory elements (giant/midget, void/solid, round/square), and often gives his buildings a rusticated look -- as if they are all foundation or bottom floor. His structures retain Modernism's functionality alongside a Postmodern pastiche of elements that evoke ruins, fragments, erosion, amplification, and saturated polychromy. Botta's first American structure, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, reflects Kahn's influence in its emphasis on open space and natural light. Botta strives for an architecture that dialogues with landscape rather than technology and mechanization -- interacting with nature instead of degrading it. His designs are driven by moral rather than aesthetic issues, and he sees architecture "as a way of resisting loss of identity," the flattening of culture brought about by consumerism. [show less]