Conference Hall

Every year, the small Swiss town of Mendrisio welcomes hundreds of architecture students from all over the world. The railroad connects "il magnifico borgo" to the main European capitals: in just one hour you can reach Milan, the capital of Lombardy; or, if you head north, in about two hours you're in Zurich, Switzerland's economic capital.

With the aim of studying the expansion of the University Campus, Mario Botta, then director of the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture, proposed a conference hall to be located next to the Railway Station.

This location offered the opportunity to make up for the lack of public space associated with this facility. A public square was therefore designed, connected directly to the station platforms via two pre-existing underground passages. Underneath the square, the large conference hall was designed with a capacity for 500 seats, whose configuration allows for different usage schemes.