Luigi Snozzi was a radical architectural designer and theorist, his works always fusing stark, rationalised geometries with progressive thought. His masterplan for Monte Carasso (a former municipality in the Swiss Ticino region) was perhaps his boldest and saw Snozzi orientate, design and construct a series of Modernist structures around an elementary school – as was his initial commission – that developed to include ten residences, two housing blocks and a bank (amongst others). Vitally, Snozzi (much like his predecessor Le Corbusier who’s work certainly offers parallels) published an ethos for his work at Monte Carasso – as distilled here, including:
- Any intervention must come to terms with the structure of the place
- Three local structure experts must be nominated for a commission that will examine all projects.
(Considering how difficult it is to find experts, he proposed the commission should be made up of only one expert—him.) - There is no rule defining the architectural language.
- Elimination of all distances from roads and between neighbors.
- Maximum height for any building is three stories. Extra height can be granted for roof terraces.
- The Floor Area Ratio was raised from 0.3 to 1.
- Walls 2.5 meters high must be built along the road, reduced by the local council to 1.2 meters