THE MARIO BONI ARCHITECTURE PRIZE

AWARD FOR THE BEST DIPLOMA WORK OF THE YEAR
AT THE ACADEMY OF ARCHITECTURE, UNIVERSITÀ DELLA SVIZZERA ITALIANA

The Mario Boni Architecture prize

The Boni Award is held in memory of Mario Boni, a property developer who was born in Lugano in 1950 and passed away at before his time 1998.

The award is presented to a student enrolled at the University of Italian Switzerland’s Academy of Architecture.

The award focuses in particular on projects that have successfully incorporated conscious respect for the territory, the quality of life in individual and collective spaces, research into the characters of construction and structure and the quality and effectiveness of the representation.

The award - the first in the history of the Academy - has been presented since 2002.

Mario Boni

Mario Boni (1950-1998)

Biographical note

Mario Boni was born on 3 May 1950 in Lugano, the third child of Eligio and Erica Boni. Like his sisters Bona and Giusi, he attended the municipal Junior School.
He then continued his studies at the Don Bosco College in di Maroggia and the Maria Hilf College in Schwyz and later improved his German working in a commercial capacity in Stuttgart.
Returning to Ticino, he took a Diploma as a Construction Draughtsman and Technical Assistante at the High School in Trevano, followed by a Diploma as a Property Developer. After spending some time in London, he joined his father working on building sites, before launching out on his own with the Boni-Foglia firm. As a child, his creative games had always included daring construction projects, while his early fascination with electrical engineering later developed into his becoming an active radio ham.
An open-hearted individual with empathy for others, he was a willing volunteer helping people with disabilities.
He was a member of the Lugano Lions Club.
He died in January 1998, at the young age of only 47, after suffering illness, leaving two daughters Susanna Forte-Boni and Martina Archetti.

Selected sites:

  • Boni-Niggeler House, Via al Roccolo, Massagno (architects: Campi-Pessina architects)
  • Refurbishment of houses in the centre of Pregassona
  • Apartment building, via alle Scuole 16, Cassarate (architect: Giudici)
  • Apartment building, via Molinazzo 21, Viganello (architects: Sergio Grignoli and Attilio Panzeri)
  • Refurbishment work in the San Giovanni Hospital, Bellinzona
  • Terrace houses, Via Praccio, Massagno (architects: Campi-Pessina)
  • Refurbishment of Boni House, Biogno di Breganzona (preliminary design by architects Reinhart-Reichlin)

The Academy of Architecture*

Ever since its inception within the Università della Svizzera italiana, the Academy of Architecture has energetically and continuously pursued and fostered the culture of the project, namely the mastery of the process that, through the requisite knowledge, praxis and technology, generates the creative act: from intuition to achievement. On this cornerstone, and with the aim of responding to the demands of contemporary culture, rests its teaching, which qualifies and differentiates it in Switzerland and throughout Europe.

In our daily work – in the lecture rooms, studio sessions, research institutes and the many cultural activities we present to the public – our school, more than twenty years since its foundation, has proved capable of raising issues which, moving from the narrowly disciplinary skills, then open out to the social, philosophical and political scenarios in which architecture operates. The mental openness that we seek to develop in this way in our students, the critical ability and creative approach never dissociated from rational thought, form the true path, repeatedly explored and confirmed over time, for training future architects in the complexity of design practice. The Modern Masters succeeded in doing this in times no less troubled than our own, so remaining a model, an enduring point of reference and a morally binding example.

The Academy was founded and is deeply rooted in Ticino, a canton that acts as a bridge between the cultures of North and South: a geographic, linguistic and cultural condition that is extraordinarily favourable to practising and producing quality in the globalized world. In this respect, cosmopolitanism, another feature of our school, remains one of our indispensable values, reiterated every year in the increasingly variegated choice of faculty as in the reception we reserve for students from around the world.

* Source: arc.usi.ch, academy, welcome

The diploma work theme 2025

Lisbona, sponda sud: l'estuario al centro*

L'area metropolitana di Lisbona, creata nel 1991 e rivista nel 2003 e nel 2008, aggrega il Municipio di Lisbona ad altri circostanti in una nuova figura sovramunicipale. A nord del Tejo i comuni di Loures, Vila Franca de Xira, Odivelas, Amadora, Mafra, Sintra, Cascais e Oeiras; a sud, Almada, Seixal, Barreiro, Montijo, Moita, Alcochete, Palmela, Sesimbra e Setúbal (questi ultimi tre gli unici senza affaccio al fiume). In questo nuovo contesto l'estuario del Tejo (chiamato “Mar da Palha”) sta al centro dell'area metropolitana di Lisbona. Nonostante un'amministrazione territoriale (che riguarda quasi 3 milioni di persone su un territorio di circa 2700 km2) attenta a temi quali la mobilità, i trasporti, la strategia economica e industriale, nella pratica questo spazio enorme risulta privo di strumenti di gestione adeguati alla sua dimensione.

Le dinamiche recenti del mercato immobiliare di Lisbona - con offerte di qualità in termini di servizi, spazi pubblici e cultura - hanno determinato un movimento centrifugo della popolazione verso i comuni più periferici, inaugurando così un nuovo modello metropolitano maggiormente policentrico.

Le precedenti dinamiche urbanistiche avevano disegnato un estuario molto asimmetrico, con una sponda nord ricca, nobilitata da attività “pulite”, e una sponda sud povera, industriale, dormitorio della capitale. La decisione recente di costruire il nuovo aeroporto ad Alcochete potrà in futuro accentuare le già intense relazioni fra le due sponde, aprendo a una maggiore coesione territoriale. Ma oggi le due sponde rimangono ancora lontane, divise da preconcetti e disuguaglianze concrete, mentre le meravigliose architetture e infrastrutture dismesse lungo la sponda sud giacciono abbandonate nel cuore di un'estesa area dominata da un parco e una riserva naturale.

Dare un nuovo significato a una ventina di luoghi, immaginare un futuro che li metta in relazione tra loro e con la città di Lisbona è la sfida che proponiamo per il Diploma 2025.

Direzione

  • João Nunes
  • João Gomes da Silva

Professori di Diploma

  • Francisco e Manuel Aires Mateus
  • Walter Angonese
  • Valentin Bearth
  • Riccardo Blumer
  • Frédéric Bonnet
  • Yvonne Farrell & Shelley McNamara
  • Kersten Geers
  • Anne Holtrop
  • Carla Juaçaba
  • Quintus Miller
  • João Nunes e João Gomes da Silva
  • Martino Pedrozzi
  • Muck Petzet
  • Eva Prats
  • Jonathan Sergison

Coordinamento

  • Monica Sciarini
  • Lorenzo Fassi
  • Beatriz Arcari

* Fonte: arc.usi.ch, didattica, diploma

Lisbon, South Shore: the Estuary at the Centre*

The Lisbon metropolitan area, created in 1991 and revised in 2003 and 2008, merged the Municipality of Lisbon with other surrounding areas into a new supra-municipal entity. To the north of the Tagus are the municipalities of Loures, Vila Franca de Xira, Odivelas, Amadora, Mafra, Sintra, Cascais and Oeiras; to the south, are Almada, Seixal, Barreiro, Montijo, Moita, Alcochete, Palmela, Sesimbra and Setúbal (these last three being the only ones without a view of the river). In this new context, the Tagus estuary (known as the Mar da Palha) is at the centre of the metropolitan area of Lisbon. Despite a territorial administration (comprising almost 3 million people in a territory covering some 2700 km2) attentive to issues such as mobility, transport, economic and industrial strategy, in practice this huge space lacks management tools appropriate to its size.

The recent dynamics of the Lisbon real-estate market - with quality offerings in terms of facilities, public spaces, and culture - have prompted a centrifugal movement of the population towards the more peripheral municipalities, so leading to a new, more polycentric metropolitan model.

Earlier urban dynamics had drawn a very asymmetrical estuary, with a rich north bank, ennobled by “clean” activities, and a poor, industrial south bank with the dormitory suburbs for the capital. The recent decision to build the new airport at Alcochete may in future accentuate the already intense relations between the two shores, ensuring greater territorial cohesion. But today the two shores still remain far apart, divided by preconceptions and concrete inequalities, while the wonderful abandoned architecture and infrastructures along the south shore lie abandoned in the heart of an extensive area dominated by a park and a nature reserve.

Giving a new significance to some twenty places, imagining a future that connects them to each other and to the city of Lisbon, is the challenge we propose for the 2025 Diploma.

Director

  • João Nunes
  • João Gomes da Silva

Professors in charge

  • Francisco e Manuel Aires Mateus
  • Walter Angonese
  • Valentin Bearth
  • Riccardo Blumer
  • Frédéric Bonnet
  • Yvonne Farrell & Shelley McNamara
  • Kersten Geers
  • Anne Holtrop
  • Carla Juaçaba
  • Quintus Miller
  • João Nunes e João Gomes da Silva
  • Martino Pedrozzi
  • Muck Petzet
  • Eva Prats
  • Jonathan Sergison

Coordination

  • Monica Sciarini
  • Lorenzo Fassi
  • Beatriz Arcari

* Source: arc.usi.ch, courses, diploma