Acclaimed Swiss architect Luigi Snozzi, one of the main representatives of the so-called Ticinese School of architecture, has died at the age of 88, Swiss media reported Wednesday.

He died of COVID-19 on Tuesday morning in a retirement home in Minusio, in the Italian-speaking southern canton of Ticino, according to public broadcaster RSI.

Snozzi worked mainly locally in Ticino and was known for his characteristic use of exposed concrete. 

"Any intervention implies destruction," he has been quoted as saying. "Destroy consciously, and with joy." 

He was part of the Ticinese school, which included the likes of Mario Botta and Livio Vacchini, and promoted the idea of rational architecture.

Snozzi mainly designed single-family homes, with his most famous works including the Snider and Cavalli houses in Verscio, as well as urban planning projects like the redevelopment of the convent area in Monte Carasso.

He represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 1996 and won the prestigious Meret Oppenheim Prize in 2018.

Snozzi was also a professor at the EPFL technical university in Lausanne.

"The aim of teaching architecture is not simply the forming of brilliant and skilful architects, but rather that of intellectual critics endowed with a moral conscience," Snozzi said during his inaugural lecture at the EPFL in 1987.