MAXXI – National Museum of the XXI Century Arts, by Zaha Hadid

MAXXI, Museum of the XXI Century Arts, designed by the legendary Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid, will serve as Italy’s first national museum of art, and it’s first national museum of architecture. MAXXI is a complex of interconnected structures, that function as a unified vision, while allowing separate exhibit spaces and galleries to exist indepenently of one another.

In the words of Hadid,“The Centre of Contemporary Arts addresses the question of its urban context by continuing the low-level urban texture of the former army barracks as set against the higher level blocks on the surrounding sides. In this way, the centre is more like an ‘urban graft’, a second skin to the site. At times it affiliates with the ground, yet it also ascends and coalesces to become a mass where needed. By the intertwining the circulation patterns with the urban context, the building’s tendril-like paths and open spaces overlap with those of the city. The architectural elements are also geometrically aligned with the urban grids, further assimilating the building with its context.”

Scheduled to open in 2010, MAXXI will be a long-awaited celebration for Hadid, who has been notorious for the projects she hasn’t built.