Mogno Church

The hamlet of Mogno lost its old church to an avalanche in the 1980s, and the replacement, designed by the Ticino architect Mario Botta, was built through the 1990s from local stone laid in alternating bands of grey gneiss and white marble. The plan is square outside and elliptical inside, the walls lean outward as they rise, and the roof is a slanted disc of glass and steel that fills the interior with plain daylight and nothing else. It seats a few dozen people. Standing among a handful of stone houses at the top of a narrow valley, it is a deliberate piece of architecture in a place with almost no other buildings.

What you actually see

• The striped stonework - bands of grey gneiss and white marble running through walls and floor.
• The glass roof - the tilted disc that lights the whole interior from above.
• The elliptical interior - a square outside that turns into an oval room within.
• The valley setting - the church standing among a few stone houses at the head of the valley.

When to go

Late spring to autumn, when the valley road and buses run normally and the light comes through the glass roof at a useful angle. Midday gives the strongest contrast on the striped stone. In winter the upper valley is snowbound and access can be limited, and the church is sometimes locked outside service times.

Honest expectations

It is a long trip up a dead-end valley for one small building, and there is very little else in the hamlet: no shops, one road, limited parking. Bus connections are infrequent, so a wrong departure costs hours. The church can be closed without notice, in which case there is nothing to do but look at the outside.

Nearby

The Maggia valley below has river pools and stone villages along its length.