The Foundation’s buildings and its underground exhibition area were old and needed refurbishing. The Board of Trustees decided to build a new museum that would be better suited to house the Foundation’s treasures.

It was a challenging project that only a bold and creative architect could take on.  The Board chose Swiss architect Mario Botta. Mr Gabriele Rossi of Archilab was responsible for the site and presided over the buildings committee in charge of operations. Both the deadlines and the budget were respected. Work started in the summer of 2000 and the museum was inaugurated on 21 November 2003.

The churches Mario Botta had built, like the one in Mogno, were full of intense emotions and the strong use of natural light accentuated space and shadows.  As he himself said, he ‘refused to bequeath to future generations a world that was poorer than the one received.’ As a humanist, he understood from the outset what the Bodmer Collection represented: a human heritage. He was enthusiastic about building a ‘temple’ of universal written works.

‘In a contemporary city’, he said, ‘the museum has the same status as a new cathedral – it is as a place of memory, and a place where the works of art on display help us to relate to other eras … The older I get, the more I understand that the territory on which the architect has to work is that of memory.’