Around the World and Selections
The Other Side of the Bridge On Mario Botta
Kamran Afshar Naderi
Memar 7 · Winter 1999
Many architecture historians and prominent cultural figures around the world, in addition to Botta himself, have written valuable material about his architecture. Being among the first is no easy task. My essay, which is a summary of my particular perspective on Botta's architecture, necessarily begins not from Switzerland — his birthplace — but from Iran, and specifically from Isfahan: a city that, by Botta's own account, was the primary reason for his trip to Iran.
Some time ago, during one of our discussions about contemporary architecture, a friend who is a strong advocate of avant-garde architecture, without trying to draw conclusions, quite randomly recounted something that struck me as profoundly meaningful: "One summer in Isfahan, after photographing the mosques, I arrived at the Khaju Bridge. The brilliance of the brick arches and the reflection of the rhythmic curves in the water deeply captivated me. Taking advantage of the quiet hour, I spent several hours photographing the bridge. When my film rolls ran out and I wanted to return to the hotel, I was astonished to see hundreds of people on the other side of the bridge — the shaded side — sitting on wooden platforms or on the stone steps at the base of the bridge, engaged in conversation, resting, drinking tea, or smoking hookahs."
At that very moment, it occurred to me that architecture, like the bridge in our summer afternoon story, has one side that is professionally appealing and arouses architects' curiosity, and another side that draws people and life toward it. Past architects, like the architect of the Khaju Bridge, while attentive to the sunny side of the bridge, placed the foundation of their work on the shaded side. The point is that the Khaju Bridge is not merely a beautiful, functional, and innovative work of structural and technical engineering, but a structure designed to honor the city and especially for the life of its people.
Today, we witness the global spread of architectures that have placed sciences, cosmology, advanced mathematics, and other specialized curiosities at the foundation of their work: architectures that spring less from life and more from the constraints of intellectual labor. The belief in absolute values external to human existence has influenced much of architecture's claim to value. It is in such circumstances that Botta's significance at the dawn of the new millennium becomes meaningful. His architecture pays great attention to the human aspects of architecture. Instead of trying to highlight the characteristics of our age and convert its alienating effects into aesthetic values, he strives to compensate for deficiencies and humanize today's over-structured environment.
He does not seek complexity. He seeks the legibility and clarity that, as he says, can be found in the spaces of great historical works such as the Chartres Cathedral or the Sforza Castle in Milan. He does not point to hermeneutics. He believes in architecture as a language and in the use of a defined and simple vocabulary to distinguish public buildings and important uses such as museums, churches, and libraries within the vast and complex structure of today's metropolises. He is not an advocate of the shapeless, identity-less city as a manifestation of our era. He tries to reinterpret the damaged urban plan through strong visual markers.
Botta's works, while innovative, are not replacements for historical values or the meaningful efforts of the Modern movement. Botta's unique language gives him the legitimacy to be influenced by great architects such as Le Corbusier, Carlo Scarpa, and Louis Kahn. In Botta's works, one can find Le Corbusier's formal sensitivity, Kahn's interest in timeless patterns, and Scarpa's attention to detail.
Botta turns to history. This reference is more structural and fundamental than stylistic and eclectic. The form of buildings and their details and the relationship between the two are so coherent that they seem to have emerged over centuries. The architectural elements that Botta likens to the vocabulary of a specific language are remarkable in their level of definition and richness. Some of his works, such as the Monte Tamaro Chapel, remind us of Romanesque architecture. The defined geometry, the generous use of the wall as a meaningful presence — not an abstract surface — the use of stone and brick and the use of the arch are shared features between his work and Romanesque architecture.
Some critics have compared his work to that of Aldo Rossi due to his use of arches and specific elements in design and his employment of simple Platonic volumes that sometimes resemble simplified patterns of classical architecture. In the author's view, although Botta's professional formation is not far from Italian Neo-Rationalism, his combined experience is more successful and varied than Aldo Rossi's. Perhaps the reason is that Botta, while advancing a specific argument in architecture and creating a kind of tradition in aesthetics, has constantly broken his own conventions and pushed beyond his own frameworks. The American Monument in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, the Monte Tamaro Chapel, and the Dortmund Library in Germany, although all designed in recent years, are very different from each other despite sharing fundamental principles.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, California 1989–1995 (in collaboration with HOK San Francisco)
In Botta's view, museums are the new cathedrals of today's city, and for this reason, in addition to dealing with collective memory and culture, they are important urban markers — components that play a catalytic role, causing the city's structure and internal laws to become more visible. This building, located on the edge of the city center, has defined the site's edges so as to emphasize the distinction between the city center and its surroundings.
The urban planning challenge of the project was that nearby stood important buildings such as the old Congress building by Paul Rudolph, the nearby Pacific Bell Tower, and a skyscraper from the early twentieth century, with a planned addition of a visual arts center by Fumihiko Maki, a theater building by Pei Cobb, and two towers being designed by Frank Gehry and the firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. With its volume of 100,000 cubic meters rising approximately 45 meters from the ground, the building was nonetheless unable to compete with these urban markers in purely quantitative terms. By breaking the conventional rule of the urban building as tower or block, Botta displayed an independent identity. The stepped overall volume, designed for the use of natural light in the museum, contributed to this unique characteristic.
The project from the outset had to respond to three important issues. The first was the use of natural light in the museum, which differs from the prevailing idea of a museum as a technological box using artificial light. Botta says on this matter: "A museum should not be turned into a laboratory. Like any other building, a museum deserves to have its own light."
The second goal was for the museum to reflect the city's form in one of its constituent parts (the museum) and to display the philosophy of its formation. According to him, one of the limitations of modern and contemporary architecture is that buildings are designed like labyrinths, and if non-architectural measures such as signs and plaques don't come to the rescue, people lose themselves in space. Successful architectures of the past were able to clearly display their spatial totality in a single moment. This is the quality that, in Botta's view, links a building's architecture to the city: the possibility of orientation in space — what Heidegger called the human precondition for dwelling in space.
Chapel at Monte Tamaro, Switzerland 1990–1996
The second project, which is one of Botta's most interesting works, is a chapel at Monte Tamaro, one of the peaks at a very high altitude on a hillside in the mountain range. This location, accessible by cable car, is near the city of Lugano in Italian-speaking Switzerland.
The project resembles a Roman bridge with the cylindrical volume of the chapel at its end. A new interpretation of an old concept of modern architecture: the architectural promenade, or a building that is simultaneously a promenade. The main element of the project is a path along which the outside view and interior functions are discovered. The form and skyline of this building have completely transformed the natural landscape. For Botta, respecting the environment does not mean hiding within it. Architecture means transforming a natural condition into a cultural one.
Being different does not necessarily mean being opposed. The issue is dialogue, not dictation. The landscape becomes more attractive and richer with the presence of humans. Therefore, the designer's task is to assign value to environmental characteristics, and this valuation is generally achieved by introducing a strong and independent element into the environment. Architecture differs from environment. Environment is the product of a history (the sedimentation of continuous events over long periods). Architecture, on the contrary, is the result of a momentary decision.
It is born of a specific temporal condition, and any simulation of complexity and historical sedimentation through recourse to advanced mathematics and techniques such as fractals is futile. In this work, great attention has been paid to the ritual aspect of architecture, and simple matters such as looking and walking seem to have been transformed into important and religious rituals of life.
Although this project has changed the role of the land... "I like to imagine that what is built is part of the earth that has grown and emerged. Because architecture is not a tool for building in a place, but a tool for building a place."
American Monument in Santa Cruz, Bolivia 1996
The project program envisions an entrance zone for an existing urban park — a park that is surrounded like an access space by its surrounding complexes. The project proposes, as a solution, the creation of two buildings at two angles facing the city and the park. The buildings look toward the park (this project was carried out in collaboration with local architect Luis Fernández Córdova). The connection between these two buildings is through a straight water channel and a laser beam (for the night view).
Jean Tinguely Museum in Basel, Switzerland 1993–1996
This museum is one of Botta's special projects which, although it employs his customary language, is different from his other works — which are manifestations of simple and absolute order — because of an emerging, asymmetrical element on the building's southern side. He generally uses simple geometric forms and is faithful to order and symmetry. Here both order and a kind of disorder that counts as an exception — and increases the value of the orderly part — can be seen. This building, with its relatively small volume (52/450 square meters) and dimensions of 61.2 by 8.7 meters, is considered an important urban marker.
In this project too, geometry plays an important role. He says on this subject: "I search for the spirit of geometry. I believe geometry and light are the tubes of architecture. Without light there is no architecture, and light also needs geometry to be expressed. Geometry helps the legibility of space."
Dortmund Library, Germany 1995–1999
In the Dortmund city library project, the important point is that the two main parts of the library — the depository and the reading room — have been separated. The first, which has an orderly, sculpted stone volume, is placed along the facade of the historic city, and the reading room, which is glass and transparent, protrudes from it. Between the two, a passageway has been defined. The two parts of this project are completely different in terms of color and materials. Botta in most of his projects pays great attention to the expression of materials and color in distinguishing the building's components and emphasizing its architectural characteristics.
The circular form and their practical separation through a pedestrian walkway passing between them, along with the emphasis on separation through form, technology, materials, color, and spatial organization, indicates Botta's tendency to reveal the internal tensions of a building as a human institution. He has sought to reach the origin and root of the project's issues. It is for this reason that when facing functional problems, instead of trying to respond mechanically, he always strives to find the pure essence and deep meaning of the function and express it in a special language.
Some of the quotations in this article have been extracted from the text of Mario Botta's lecture at the contemporary architecture seminar, translated and edited into Farsi by Mr. Rabiei. We thank him.
