(1933-2007)

The Swiss architect passed away in Basel after a long illness that kept him in hospital for several months. Born in 1933 in Locarno, in the southern canton of Ticino, in 1953 he began his architecture studies at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). Five years later he travelled to Stockholm and Paris, before returning to his city to initiate his professional career, in 1968, with Luigi Snozzi, with whom he designed the UBS building in Ascona and a residential complex in Carasso. Halfway through the 1970s he set up a partnership with Aurelio Galfetti, with whom he designed the Losone Middle School (1975). He soon earned international recognition thanks to a style in which structural elements were reduced as much as possible, with works ascribable to the modern tradition of architects such as Mies van der Rohe or Louis Kahn. Vacchini built in Switzerland pieces like his own house in Tenero-Contra (1992) or the multipurpose Gym in Losone (1997), and abroad works like the School of Architecture in Nancy, France (1995). From 1995 on, Vacchini worked with Silvia Gmür from his studios in Locarno and Basel.