Learn About the MAXXI Museum: 5 Characteristics of MAXXI

The MAXXI, which stands for Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo (“national museum of twenty-first century arts” in English), is the Italian national museum of contemporary art and architecture located in Rome, Italy. The MAXXI is one of the few museums in Italy dedicated exclusively to contemporary creativity and is home to architectural and art collections by various artists including Ed Ruscha, Grazia Toderi, Gilbert & George, Luigi Ghirri, and Anish Kapoor.

The MAXXI museum itself is an ambitious work of modern architecture that consists of a series of overlapping, intertwined platforms made of steel, glass, and lighting. The MAXXI campus is home to a modern art museum (MAXXI Art), the MAXXI architecture museum, an auditorium, a cafeteria, temporary exhibit spaces, a bookshop, and a library.

In 1998, the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage held an international design competition for a new contemporary art museum building. Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid entered a submission and won, and the MAXXI museum was subsequently built by Zaha Hadid Architects. The building site was formerly home to the Caserma Montello, a campus of military barracks. The museum took over ten years to build, and construction was finished in 2009. The building opened in 2010 and that same year, the museum received the Stirling Prize for Architecture of the Royal Institute of British Architects.

The MAXXI Museum is a recognizably modern building in a historical Rome neighborhood. There are a few notable and defining characteristics of the museum’s architecture that, including:

1. 1. It challenges conventional shapes. The MAXXI building is an abstract structure made out of glass, concrete, and steel that doesn’t have a simple square or rectangular shape. The building is made of a series of overlapping platforms that create a multidimensional structure. These platforms start off straight, then curve into one another to create an open structure that folds in on itself. Parallel walls and sloping trajectories help shape the interior and exterior spaces, emphasizing certain lines and directing traffic through the gallery space.
2. 2. It plays with space in a meaningful way. Inside, the MAXXI museum is a large, open space. Some rooms have straight walls, while others may have curved walls that open up to a steel-tracked ceiling with glass panels. The flow of the space allows for visitors to meander through the museum directed by the lighting and the curves of the walls.
3. 3. It has a neutral appearance. Combining different materials like steel, cement, and glass establishes a neutral aesthetic in the museum that opposes the blinding white interior spaces usually seen in museums. In spite of its neutrality, the atmosphere is still dynamic, playing with all of the other interior and exterior elements to create a unique layout.
4. 4. It allows plenty of natural light. With its transparent glass roof, the MAXXI receives plenty of natural light within its walls, allowing for more accurate viewing of exhibits and artworks (rather than seeing them beneath artificial light). However, some artificial equation lighting is incorporated into spaces like hallways, ceilings, and stairways.
5. 5. It has a cavernous foyer. The ground floor entrance of MAXXI connects the outdoor spaces surrounding the building to its large, multiple-story foyer. This space is bathed in natural and artificial light and crossed with a series of interconnected pedestrian walkways and staircases for visitors to access the multiple floors of the building.

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