Maxxi

MAXXI represents an attempt to bundle, twist and build mass in some places and reduce it in others
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The MAXXI relates with the urban context within which it is set by renewing the horizontal development of the former military barracks. The geometrical plan of the project aligns itself with the two urban grids that regulate the town planning structure of the area and the new interpretation of these two geometrical plans within the proposal generates the surprising geometrical complexity of the campus.

“The site has a unique L-shaped footprint that meanders between two existing buildings. Rather than seeing this as a limitation...” explains Zaha Hadid, principal and founder of Zaha Hadid Architects, “...we used it to our advantage, taking it as an opportunity to explore the possibilities of linear structure by bundling, twisting, and building mass in some areas and reducing it in others—threading linearity throughout both interior and exterior.”

The two urban grids are mediated by sinuous lines that harmonise the plan and facilitate the flow within the site. The pedestrian walkway that crosses the campus is open to the public and has been reinstated after approximately 100 years of being blocked by the barracks. This walkway follows the soft outline of the museum, sliding below the upper level galleries towards Via Masaccio. The interior of the MAXXI can be seen by visitors and pedestrians through the numerous openings in its curvilinear walls that on the one hand, protect its contents, yet beckon the visitor through the broad glazed surface on the ground floor.

The main concept of the project is directly linked to the purpose of the building as a centre for the exhibition of visual arts. The walls that cross the space, and their intersections, defines interior and exterior spaces of the MAXXI. This system acts on all three levels of the building, the second of which is the more complex—with a wealth of connections with various bridges that link buildings and galleries together. The visitor is invited to enter into a series of continuous spaces, rather than the compact volume of an isolated building.

“The MAXXI should not be considered just one building—it should be thought of as several buildings,” says Hadid. “The idea was to move away from‘the museum as an object’ and towards the idea of a ‘field of buildings’.”

The interior spaces, defined by the exhibition walls, are covered by a glass roof that flood the galleries with natural light filtered by the louvered lines of the roofing beams. These beams underline the linearity of the spatial system, aid in articulating the various orientations of the galleries and facilitate circulation through the museum and campus.

“I see the MAXXI as an immersive urban environment for the exchange of ideas, feeding the cultural vitality of the city,” says Hadid. “It’s no longer just a museum, but an urban cultural centre where a dense texture of interior and exterior spaces have been intertwined and superimposed over one another.”

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THE FIELD OF POSSIBILITIES

The MAXXI addresses the question of its urban context by maintaining a reference to the former army barracks. This is in no way an attempt at topological pastiche, but instead continues the low-level urban texture set against the higher level blocks on the surrounding sides of the site. In this way, the MAXXI is more like an ‘urban graft’, a second skin to the site.

At times, it affiliates with the ground to become new ground, yet also ascends and coalesces to become massive where needed. The entire building has an urban character: prefiguring upon a directional route connecting the River to Via Guido Reni, the Centre encompasses both movement patterns existing and desired, contained within and outside. This vector defines 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.

SPACE vs. OBJECT

Our proposal offers a quasi-urban field; 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 MAXXI as a whole: porous, immersive, a field space. The external as well as internal circulation follows the overall drift of the geometry. Vertical and oblique circulation elements are located at areas of confluence, interference and turbulence.

“After many studies, our research evolved into the concept of the confluence of lines, where the primary force of the site is the walls that constantly intersect and separate to create both indoor and outdoor spaces,” explains Hadid. “It’s an intriguing mixture of galleries, irrigating a large urban field with linear display surfaces.”

The move from object to field 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 gallery and exhibitions experts, 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 led away from the ‘object’ and toward fields of multiple associations that are anticipative of the necessity to change.