-Showcases Mario Botta's portfolio of projects and contemporary design talents in stunning full-colour photography, with detailed plans and drawings and comprehensive profile descriptions -Celebrates almost 40 works of this prolific architect, and is a superb compendium to IMAGES' highly successful Leading Architects Series -Profiles the insight into the influences of this firm and its practice, while capturing its vision for the future of design, emerging trends and influences that shapes its work We recognize Mario Botta's buildings for their strong presence. His architecture is not ephemeral. It shapes the mass firmly and precisely. It touches the ground with self-reliance. A building by Mario Botta is an autonomous object. It comprises an ordered world of its own make. It is standing in dialogue with the urban tissue, but it establishes its own order as if it aims at differentiation instead of integration. Architectural order represents the core of his personal idiom. It is a well structured, compositional order which organises everything into a whole, as an underlying thread that connects and brings together houses on the mountains to museums and churches, banks and commercial buildings to buildings on the ground and buildings underground, different buildings at different places in time. The themes that underlie Mario Botta's architecture are ties that connect and spines that support, common threads that bind one building to the next. His architecture is one of mass. It is then of no surprise that mass is the first thing to be defined and ordered, in his creative process. The volume of his buildings is mostly composed by one or more primary solids. Volume is thus an a-priori for Botta. It is conceived beforehand, the starting point to the adventure of architectural design.

"This volume presents the work of the Swiss-born architect who worked as an assistant to such architecture giants as Le Corbusier and Louis I. Kahn before starting his own firm in 1970 and achieving international fame. Botta's characteristic respect for topographical conditions and regional sensibilities, his deft craftmanship, and the importance of geometric order in his work are evidenced in thiry projects that range from smaller residential buildings to such grandiose projects as the Church of San Giovanni Battista, the Jean Tinguely Museum and, most famously, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. This detailed study also includes the designs he created for furniture and the stage. Mario Botta: Architectural Poetics is a thorough survey of the architectural and design work that launched Botta into the pantheon of modern architecture."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Mario Botta -- The Complete Works is the only complete edition of Botta's creative work co-designed and authorized by the architect himself; it is now internationally recognized as the definitive work on Botta. These volumes draw a complete picture of Mario Botta's creative work as an architect, furniture designer, and exhibition and stage designer. Volume highlights include the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, the cathedral in Evry, the mountain church on Monte Tamaro (Ticino), the bank at Aeschenplatz, and the recently opened Tinguely museum, both of which are located in Basel. The newest projects are also introduced, such as the municipal library in Dortmund and the synagogue in Tel Aviv.

"Churches is a work that reflects the grandeur of its subject matter. In this book, Judith Dupre presents an architectural tour of fifty-nine of the world's most enduring Christian churches, from such celebrated landmarks as St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Oak Park, Illinois, and Le Corbusier's Chapel at Notre-Dame-du-Haut in Ronchamp, France, to lesser-known masterpieces, including Huialoha Congregational Church on Maui and the Church on the Water in Hokkaido, Japan. Special theme essays cover the earliest Christian churches, the construction of Gothic cathedrals, the evolution of the baptismal font, churches designed by contemporary artists, and the revival of meditative labyrinth walking. With photographs and essays, this book offers a nuanced portrait of each structure, blending its architectural history with a deep appreciation for art and a reverence for religious traditions. Encompassing houses of worship from six major Christian denominations and all corners of the earth, Churches is a chronology of faith and achievement that will inspire anyone interested in architecture, art, travel, religion, or photography."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

This is the first book in English on the work of the architect Mario Botta, who lives in the Canton Ticino in southern Switzerland. Although he has built almost solely in Switzerland and for the most part in the Ticino, his library of the Capuchin monastery in Lugano, artisan center in Balerna, State Bank in Friberg, as well as his round house in Stabio have earned him an international reputation.

This book surveys modernism as interpreted in the private residences of the San Francisco Bay Area. An ecelectic array of over 30 homes are presented , showcasing modernist ideas in the context of everyday life.

Mario Botta's buildings are characterized by simple, geometric shapes that juxtapose lightness and weight. This richly illustrated monograph examines Botta's most recent examples on this theme, as seen in the Kyobo Tower in Seoul, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel, and the Cymbalista Synagogue in Tel Aviv. Hundreds of photographs, sketches, and plans illustrate the architect's desire to create structures that adhere to and complement their locations, and show how his choice of materials emphasizes craftsmanship and geometric order. Botta's finished buildings are examined alongside plans which never saw completion, demonstrating the extraordinary creative process of this modern visionary.

Louis Hellman's unique method of describing the work of an architect by drawing their head in the style of their building is known the world over. The drawings have been an enormous success, and have been converted into postcards, posters, and calendars, yet this is the first time they will be displayed in a book.

"The Ticino Guide covers the area ... from the Swiss canton through upper Lombardy to Milan. An excellent introduction discusses the indigenous architecture." -Progressive Architecture