MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts

Architectural Concept and Urban Strategy: Staging the Field of Possibilities
The MAXXI design addresses the question of its urban context by maintaining an indexicality to the former army barracks. This is in no way an attempt at topological pastiche, but instead continues the lowlevel urban texture set against the higher level blocks on the surrounding sides of the site.

In this way, the Centre is more like an ‘urban graft’, a second skin to the site. At times, it affi liates with the ground to become new ground, yet also ascends and coalesces to become massivity where needed. The entire building has an urban character: prefi guring upon a directional route connecting the River to Via Guido Reni, the Centre encompasses both movement patterns extant and desired, contained within and outside.

This vector defi nes the primary entry route into the building. By intertwining the circulation with the urban context, the building shares a public dimension with the city, overlapping tendril-like paths and open space. In addition to the circulatory relationship, the architectural elements are also geometrically aligned with the urban grids that join at the site. In thus partly deriving its orientation and physiognomy from the context, it further assimilates itself to the specific conditions of the site.

Facts:
Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects
Date: 1998 / 2009
Client: Italian Ministry of Culture
Size: 30,000m²
Design: Zaha Hadid, Patrik Schumacher
Project Architect: Gianluca Racana
Site Supervision Team: Anja Simons, Paolo Matteuzzi, Mario Mattia
Design Team: Anja Simons, Paolo Matteuzzi, Fabio Ceci, Mario Mattia, Maurizio Meossi, Paolo Zilli, Luca Peralta, Maria Velceva, Matteo Grimal, Ana M.Cajiao, Barbara Pfenningstorff, Dillon Lin, Kenneth Bostock, Raza Zahid, Lars Teichmann, Adriano De Gioannis, Amin Taha, Caroline Voet, Gianluca Ruggeri and Luca Segarelli
Planning: ABT srl
Structure: Anthony Hunt Associates, OK Design Group
M&E: Max Fordham and Partners, OK Design Group
Lighting: Equation Lighting
Acoustic: Paul Gilleron Acoustic
Contractor: Italiana Costruzioni s.p.a., SAC
Consultants: SPC, E.D.IN - Elaborazione dati ingegneria, IGIT s.r.l, CIEL s.r.l., Zumtobel staff (IS Lighting)
Subcontractor: Lorenzon, Model system italia s.r.l., NACO S.r.l., GRC System Building s.r.l., KONE Ascensori S.p.A., PERI S.p.A., COMIC 2000 S.p.A., Pontina Impianti SAS, METALSIGMA Tunesi spa, SAN.CO., INPES Prefabbricati S.p.A.  and KERAKOLL

Space Vs Object
The design offers a quasi-urban fi eld, a world” to dive into rather than a building as signature object.The Campus is organised and navigated on the basis of directional drifts and the distribution of densities rather than key points. This is indicative of the character of the Centre as a whole: porous, immersive, a fi eld space. An inferred mass is subverted by vectors of circulation.

The external as well as internal circulation follows the overall drift of the geometry. Vertical and oblique circulation elements are located at areas of confl uence, interference and turbulence. The move from object to fi eld is critical in understanding the relationship the architecture will have to the content of the artwork it will house. Whilst this is further expounded by the contributions of our Gallery and Exhibitions Experts below, it is important here to state that the premise of the architectural design promotes a disinheriting of the ‘object’ orientated gallery space. Instead, the notion of a ‘drift’ takes on an embodied form.

The drifting emerges, therefore, as both architectural motif, and also as a way to navigate experientially through the museum. It is an argument that, for art practice is well understood, but in architectural hegemony has remained alien. We take this opportunity, in the adventure of designing such a forward looking institution, to confront the material and conceptual dissonance evoked by art practice since the late 1960’s. The path lead away from the ‘object’ and its correlative sanctifying, towards fi elds of multiple associations that are anticipative of the necessity to change.