Mario Botta: To Be an Architect (FutureLearn)

You’ll explore the relationship between architecture and geography, sacred architecture and restoration, and the correlation between architecture and the other arts.
You’ll also analyse some of Mario Botta’s famous works, as well as the training model for Architecture students as it was conceived and developed in the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio, one of the faculty of USI.

What topics will you cover?

• What does it mean to be an architect?
• Architecture and geography: the city, house and collectivity, the example of Venice
• Sacred architecture and restoration
• Architecture and the other arts
• Architecture, design and textiles
• Mario Botta and his masters
• Works of Mario Botta: the “Stone flower” on the Monte Generoso
• Works of Mario Botta: the Academy of Architecture and the Theatre of Architecture in Mendrisio as examples of a humanistic approach to architecture

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

• Develop critical thinking about some basic concepts in architecture
• Identify the relationships among architecture and other arts and disciplines
• Describe the architect’s work
• Explain the relationship between the concepts of living, city and collectivity
• Develop a personal conception of the architect's work based on Mario Botta’s approach
• Describe the philosophy of the foundation of the Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio and of some other works by Mario Botta
• Reflect on what does it mean to "build" an architect
• Identify some of the most important works of Mario Botta
• Reflect on a humanistic approach to architecture
• Reflect on contemporary architecture
• Identify the architects who most influenced Mario Botta's works