Designed by world-renowned architect Mario Botta, the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, with paintings by Enzo Cucchi, is a masterpiece of contemporary architecture.

The visit of the Church is a must when visiting Alpe Foppa. This mighty fortress on the spur of the mountain offers a space for meditation, but also becomes the tool for a new reading of the landscape. Built between 1992 and 1996, the church is dedicated to Saint-Mary of the Angels. It presents an innovative character in the context of the design of a devotional building.

Made of porphyry, the edifice is located on the edge of a slope, from where there is an extraordinary panoramic view. The artistic intervention entrusted to Enzo Cucchi, occupies the two main spaces: the vaulting above the stairway leading into the chapel, where he has drawn two huge cypress trees, and the heart of the Church. In the apse itself, two monumental offering hands are stretched towards the visitors. It opens out against a blue ground under the perpendicular shaft of light which streams into the building. The hands are integrated in the Marian iconography, distributed in twenty-two panels placed above the windows. Father Giovanni Pozzi, a Capuchin, distinguished scholar of forms of prayer and spirituality, composed the twenty-two litanies that Enzo Cucchi translated in suggestive and evocative signs.

Do you like the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli and would you like to organise a celebration or a concert?

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Director Villi Hermann made a film about the planning and construction of the church. This film has been digitised by imagofilm.ch and is currently being restored. It can be purchased here.