Born in Switzerland in 1943, Mario Botta is a leading member of the Swiss-Italian Ticino school of Architecture. Equally comfortable working on a large scale or with smaller, more intimate projects, he is a maestro when it comes to fusing the strengths of Modernism with the tried and tested forms of tradition.

Free and wide-ranging in his use of modern construction techniques, he made his mark with such high-stakes commissions as Evry Cathedral, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Tinguely Museum in Basel. But he is respected particularly for his sensitivity to regional vernacular and to the building's relationship with the land (see his Casa Biachi in Riva San Vitale). Whether designing an office block in Lugano, a home for the elderly in Ticino, or even a celebratory tent for the 700th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation, Botta negotiates sensitively between space and light, the line and the curve, internal symmetry and the benefits of vistas to realise his essentially spiritual vision of an architectural practice for the millennium and beyond.