Winery architecture

Ioana Alexe: Is there something special about designing a winery? How do you see this theme in comparison to other architectural projects and what personal significance does it have for you?

Mario Botta: Wine cellars have become architectural subjects in their own right so much so that architects are now being asked to design wine cellars with the same expectations once reserved for "noble" building typologies such as museums, libraries, theaters, for which image is as important as functional and technological aspects. The relationship with a land shaped and planted with vines is the backdrop to these buildings, each recalling, in different ways, signs and images linking man's work to the roots of the 'mother earth'. The building, with its rationality and geometric forms, becomes the element of dialog and comparison with the natural configuration of the landscape.

I. A.: You have designed famous wineries such as Petra