The Maxxi Musuem: Its Place, History, Limits
I first became aware of Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid when my not-yet-husband and I visited New York in 2006. We went to the Guggenheim Museum, and halfway down the spiral we ran smack into an exhibit that halted me in my tracks. Made up of drawings and paintings and furniture and models and objects that defied classification, each piece of Hadid’s work seemed to shift from building design to creature to art to fantasy, and I was entranced. It was like walking into someone else’s dream of the future.
I became slightly obsessed with Hadid and her work after that, did a lot of research online and followed her career – a most amazing career that includes being the first woman to be awarded the distinguished Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2004, the founding of Zaha Hadid Architects in London (currently working on 950 projects in 44 countries), and designing some of the world’s most unusual structures. I was devasted when she died in 2016 at only 65.
One of her designs I have been lucky enough to visit is the MAXXI museum in Rome.
MAXXI – the Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, or National Museum of the 21st Century Arts - was completed in 2010, and consists of two museums, one for art and one for architecture, an auditorium, a library and media library, a bookstore, cafeteria, bar, galleries for traveling exhibits, performances and educational activities, and a large outdoor square for art works and live events. It has become a fixture, with continual exhibits that can’t be found anywhere else in Rome.
The building is unique, bulky yet somehow not bound to the earth, and truly modern in style. Critics have not always been kind, calling it “a lousy art museum” and “little more than a decorated cake.” I disagree with both these comments and many other negative reactions, and believe that it is in its own right as worthy as any other in this city of beautiful buildings. It is different, yes. It is challenging, without a doubt. But it is well worth considering as part and parcel of centuries-old Roman architectural landscape.
On one hand Hadid’s designs might seem anathema to Rome’s regional identity, rooted as it is in its past in ways that many other cities are not. And yet, in at least a few of its more recent endeavors Rome has sought out contemporary architects whose work is, on the surface, quite different from the surroundings into which a new structure will be placed. Two of those ilk that preceded Hadid’s museum design are Renzo Piano’s Orchestra di Santa Cecilia and Richard Meier’s Chiesa di Dio Padre Misericordioso, completed in 2002 and 2003, respectively.
Given its forerunners, perhaps Hadid’s museum wasn’t nearly as unsettling as it might otherwise have been, and even though it has attracted a number of detractors I believe it in fact nestles almost perfectly into Rome’s regional identity.
The MAXXI Museum was completed in 2010 after being commissioned in 2000. It sits in the Flaminio neighborhood, one of the more prestigious in Rome, and known for its museums, theaters and its auditorium. And while on the surface it might seem to connect not at all with Rome’s cultural, social, or structural history it was in fact created to make that connection in a new way. According to an article in The Guardian written upon its opening, Hadid “wanted to create a modern interpretation of the many layers of history out of which Rome is built.” My contention is that she did just that.
Taking the idea of Critical Regionalism in its broad sense as the mark of a region, the MAXXI reflects Rome in a number of ways. Its scale is massive in the same way many buildings in Rome are massive, and for many of the same reasons – to convey power, to make a statement of influence, to indicate the importance of the building itself or its purpose or architect. The material used to construct it is almost stereotypically Roman; concrete has been used since before the first century, albeit in somewhat different forms. It has been used to construct some of Rome’s more iconic and long-standing structures such as the Pantheon and the Coliseum. And as mentioned above, the building’s purpose is reflective of many other such massive, concrete structures: to bring people together, to be beautiful, to generate awe and admiration.
Doug Kelbaugh’s lists a number of characteristics that define Critical Regionalism; at least a few of the attitudes he lists are applicable to the Maxxi considering the categories of: place, history, and limits.
The love of place Kelbaugh mentions is certainly present in the design of the MAXXI. For example, it not only honors the materials used historically in Roman buildings, but uses them in the same way. Specifically, one of the marks of concrete is the way it can be used to create curved walls or domes. This aspect is taken to almost an extreme in both the inside and outside of the MAXXI.
In respecting and learning from history, the MAXXI also excels not only in the way the building materials are used but in the way the conventional, historical architectural language is acknowledged and elaborated on.
And in the way the building itself and the surroundings create a space that delimits particular activities it is very reminiscent of the way similar buildings throughout Rome, and the entire Roman world historically, have done. Kelbaugh notes the way physical and temporal boundaries can frame human place and activities; the way the MAXXI museum springs from and literally reflects back the images of modern urban living while embodying a separate and moderated way of experiencing modern art and life, is a perfect example of this idea of creating a space meant to be experienced in ways different from everyday life.
And what really makes Hadid’s MAXXI the “masterpiece fit to sit alongside Rome’s ancient wonders” is more than its function. As all her work is, the museum is a breathtaking structure designed specifically for its context – a looping, swooping, light-filled series of halls and slopes that feels both solid and ethereal. It is filled with bronze creatures and series of flowers in oils or acrylics, architectural models and fashion exhibits, posters and photos, documents and journals… truly the list is endless. Around each new sweep of white corridor lies another wonder, and you cannot help but be drawn onward, upward, and into some kind of otherworldly sensation.
The entire experience echoes and almost feels like a journey to the original ancient city might have, despite or maybe because of the museum’s futuristic design and contemporary art. The MAXXI has become part of what Rome has always been: a world of wonders created by people who are larger than life, who put their stamp on history with a structure that endures for ages and engenders wonder and amazement in us all.
References:
Doug Kelbaugh, Repairing the American Metropolis, 2002, pgs 78-89