Luigi Snozzi, Swiss Design Practice, Architects Studio Ticino, Switzerland

Luigi Snozzi Architect

Architecture Studio in Locarno / Lugano, Switzerland – Contemporary Architectural Practice

post updated 14 Apr 2021

Luigi Snozzi News

18 Sep 2013
RIBA 2014 International Fellowship

The architects have been awarded a RIBA International Fellowship

RIBA International Fellows 2014 citation:

Luigi Snozzi – architect, Switzerland

For Luigi Snozzi architecture is a public issue and a part of the political sphere. For him design is an act of political activism. And as he says, ‘A design speaks a much clearer language than any manifesto.’

photo : Wojciech Kaczura, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Snozzi is the one of the most important exponents of contemporary architecture in Ticino today. For Snozzi, building is a decidedly public affair. His deep-rooted respect for the historical context of each building site is therefore balanced by a determination that any intervention should be of equally high quality and distinctly modern.

Snozzi’s built work, which includes single family houses, social housing, commercial and public buildings, is characterized by its sensitive and intelligent use of materials. A masterful use of exposed concrete distinguishes most of his work.

Stadthof von Sursee (Architekt: Luigi Snozzi), photograph taken on 24 March 2005:

photo : Roland Zumbühl (Picswiss), Arlesheim (Commons:Picswiss project), CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Called into the Ticino village of Monte Carasso in 1978 to deliver a simple re-use job involving the conversion of an old convent into a school, Snozzi seized the opportunity to develop a complete new masterplan and road network, which better defined the historic core, created new open spaces and increased densities in the town centre.

This exemplary case has earned world-wide respect for the municipality and at the same time bestowed it with modern architecture of the highest calibre. A masterful use of exposed concrete distinguishes most of his work which has included villas, offices and public welfare buildings.

Working principally in Locarno and Lugano, he studied at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich before opening his own office in Locarno in 1958. From 1962 to 1971, Snozzi worked in association with architect Livio Vacchini. From 1982 to 1984, he was a Visiting Professor and in 1985 he was appointed Professor of Architecture at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. Today, Snozzi is a professor of the University of Sassari, at the Faculty of Architecture of Alghero, Sardinia. In 1993 his work was honored with the Wakker Prize and the Prince of Wales Prize in urban design.

The words of the Swiss playwright Max Frisch perhaps best sum up Snozzi’s thinking: ‘Utopia consists in believing that things do not have to be as they are.’

More information about Luigi Snozzi online soon

Location: Lugano, Switzerland, central Europe