MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts
Italy's national museum of contemporary art and architecture, in a Zaha Hadid building in Flaminio.
MAXXI was created by the Italian ministry of culture as a national museum for the art and architecture of its own time, and opened in May 2010 on the site of the former Montello barracks in the Flaminio district. The building was won in competition by Zaha Hadid Architects in 1998 and is organised as a set of bending concrete tubes that weave over and past one another, rising to a glazed roof of louvres and steel beams. A long black stair threads through the central hall, linking galleries on several levels.
The museum is divided into two departments. MAXXI Arte collects painting, sculpture, photography, film and installation by Italian and international artists from the later twentieth century onwards, while MAXXI Architettura holds the archives of figures such as Carlo Scarpa, Pier Luigi Nervi and Aldo Rossi, together with drawings, models and photographs. The institution also runs an auditorium, a library and a piazza used for open-air events, and in 2022 opened a second site at L'Aquila in Abruzzo.
Highlights
- Zaha Hadid's interlocking concrete galleries and suspended black staircases
- MAXXI Architettura archives of Scarpa, Nervi and Aldo Rossi
- Changing displays drawn from the national contemporary art collection
- Public piazza, auditorium and library alongside the galleries
![[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]title QS:P1476,en:"[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]"label QS:Len,"[King Thibaw Min's Throne Room - Mandalay]"](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/02/Felice_Beato_%28British%2C_born_Italy_-_%28King_Thibaw_Min%27s_Throne_Room_-_Mandalay%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg/500px-Felice_Beato_%28British%2C_born_Italy_-_%28King_Thibaw_Min%27s_Throne_Room_-_Mandalay%29_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
