Following the success of last year’s Architecture Nights, the Valletta Waterfront will once again be hosting a series of free evening architecture talks, entitled Architecture Nights 07.
Organised by the Kamra Tal-Periti (KTP), the aim of these talks will be to encourage public debate about good design and quality in architecture.
This year, KTP is concentrating on The stuff of architecture, or materiality, since it has been felt that along the years the art of using appropriate materials in their right context has been lost. The speakers for Architecture Nights 07 will be discussing the sensitive and responsive approaches they have adopted in their architectural designs, and their decisions in choosing the most suitable materials in the process
The event will feature Mario Botta on Friday at 7.30pm at the Powerhouse Theatre, Valletta Waterfront. This debate is being held under the patronage of the Swiss Embassy in Malta.
For architects and architectural enthusiasts worldwide, Mario Botta certainly needs no introduction. Following an apprenticeship within the architectural studios of Carloni and Camenisch in Lugano, Switzerland, Mario Botta graduated in 1969 from the Istituto Universitario d’Architettura in Venice, under the supervision of architectural professors Carlo Scarpa and Giuseppe Mazzariol. During the period spent in Venice, he met and worked for architecture giants Le Corbusier and Louis I. Kahn.
His professional activity started in 1970 in Lugano, where his first projects consisted of the case unifamiliari in Canton Ticino and subsequently numerous projects all around the world. He has always been heavily involved in the educational aspect of architecture and has, in recent years, created and founded the Academy of Architecture at Mendrisio.
Mario Botta’s most celebrated completed projects include the Theatre and House of Culture in Chambéry, the art gallery Watari-um in Tokyo, the Mediatheque in Villeurbanne, the SFMOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in San Francisco, the Evry Resurrection Cathedral, the Jean Tinguely museum in Basel, and the municipal library in Dortmund.
His current projects also merit due mention, and include the office and residential complex in Treviso, the University Library in Trento, the Bechtler Art Museum in Charlotte, the Art Gallery and Museum of the Tsinghua University in Beijing, the Leeum offices in Seoul, the underground railway stations in Naples, the new Auditorium in Rimini, and the Architecture Museum in Mendrisio.
More information on Architecture Nights can be obtained by calling KTP on 2131-4265 or e-mailing antoinezammit @gmail.com.