Teatro dell'architettura Mendrisio

Mario Botta Architetti, 2018

The Teatro dell'architettura Mendrisio, located within the Mendrisio Campus of the Academy of Architecture of the Università della Svizzera italiana and designed by architect Mario Botta, was made possible by the joint work of USI and the Fondazione Teatro dell'architettura, in order to offer a privileged space for dialogue in the cultural debate on architecture, the arts, the city and the landscape. Alongside the teaching and research already carried out within the university, the activities of the Teatro dell'architettura complement the educational offer with exhibitions, performances, seminars and conferences, giving visibility to the transdisciplinary interests, between memory and the contemporary, that play a part in design processes and in redefining the role of architecture in society.

On the occasion of the second edition of Open House Ticino, the TAM opens its doors with a free guided tour of the exhibition The Construction of Architecture in Ticino, 1939–1996. Materiality and Tectonics, led by curator Britta Buzzi-Huppert.

Set up on the first floor of the TAM, the exhibition, curated by Franz Graf with Britta Buzzi, Carlo Dusi, Alessandro Bonizzoni and Sebastiano Verga, offers a re-reading of more than fifty years of Ticino architecture through one hundred buildings selected for their interest from a constructional point of view. Documented with drawings, models, images and archive material, the buildings are examined up close with reference to their physical dimension: that is, the materials, building techniques and structural systems that become tools for understanding the tectonics and poetics of these works.

The exhibition project grows out of twenty years of research carried out within the Construction and Technology area of the USI Academy of Architecture. Through the analysis and redrawing of the buildings, students have gradually built an open catalogue of modern architecture in the Canton of Ticino, highlighting its constructional value and pedagogical potential.

During the Open House Ticino weekend it will also be possible to visit the other exhibitions currently on at the TAM: Pino Musi. Continuum, curated by Michael Jakob, and Sleipnir e il Labirinto di Porte, an installation created by students of the Academy of Architecture, curated by Duilio Forte.

The Teatro dell'architettura is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays, from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm.