Mario Botta, Max Bill, and the concept of beauty

On Thursday, 23 April, the USI Academy of Architecture hosted a discussion between architect and Academy co-founder Mario Botta and Jakob Bill, artist and son of Max Bill. Held at the Agorà Lio Galfetti in Palazzo Canavée, Mendrisio, the event was moderated by RSI journalist Rachele Bianchi Porro. During the encounter, Botta gave an interview to RSI dedicated to the legacy of Max Bill—the Swiss architect and designer who remains one of the most influential figures of the 20th century—and to the significance of beauty in art and architecture.

The dialogue between Mario Botta and Jakob Bill took place in connection with the exhibition "The Grammar of Beauty", dedicated to Max Bill and currently showing at the m.a.x. museo in Chiasso. Interviewed by Rachele Bianchi Porro for RSI, the Ticinese architect offered a personal reflection on the theme of beauty, taking his cue from the exhibition's title: "Beauty is a mystery," Botta stated. "Beauty is a chimera that each of us pursues; we chase it and then, for a fleeting moment, perhaps we find it." For Botta, beauty is a continuous search, difficult to define in absolute terms. "Beauty is a form of balance, of harmony, which nature or even the human hand occasionally has the joy of producing. It is a set of values that brings peace to mankind."

The Academy co-founder then turned his thoughts to Max Bill, whom he knew personally. "Max Bill was beauty. During my student years in the 70s, Max Bill was the figure who personified balance, rigour, and the culture of 'making'. He was a master from that perspective, and that is how I knew him."

Among his most vivid memories, Botta recalled an exhibition curated by Bill in Locarno in the nineties, which provided an opportunity for a direct encounter with the artist. "He took me by the arm and together we viewed—and I listened with great interest—the works he had exhibited outdoors in the gardens of the Museo Casa Rusca. It is a very intense memory." He was particularly struck by the clarity with which Bill described his work: "The lucidity with which he explained his pieces—there were about ten of them there—was a form of rational engagement that allowed one to approach an explanation of something as ephemeral as beauty." According to Botta, in Bill's work, the aesthetic was inseparable from the moral. "For Max Bill, beauty also had an ethical ideal. The rigour with which he painted was measured through a radicalism that became an ethics of craftsmanship."

The interview concluded with a look at the USI Academy of Architecture, which celebrates its thirtieth anniversary in 2026. Botta remarked on the task of architectural education in a complex era defined by profound transformations. "We created the Academy at a time when the world was in turmoil, and so it is not always easy to keep a steady course towards serving humanity, beauty, and function, without falling into rhetoric or the contemporary pastiche that clouds all reasoning. In this sense, Max Bill can serve as a guide—an example of the integrity that distinguished an artist so close to us."