The church of San Rocco in Sambuceto was born from the devastation wrought by an earthquake and the determination of a community of residents to react through a strengthening of an identity rooted in history and faith. Mario Botta's design - described in this volume in first person and analysed in the essays of Bruno Forte, Fulvio Irace and Bruno Corà - set out to interpret their needs, hopes and expectations even in the midst of the contradictions of every- day life: 'The job of the architect, even in themes that involve sacred space' writes Botta, 'remains to bear witness, in his own time as well, to the identity values laid down over many years in the past and mark a critical awareness of what it means to be human beings on the earth today, in the conviction that architecture itself is sacred, since it turns a condition of nature into a condition of culture'.