The text is a critical essay about the National Museum of XXIst Century Arts, realized by Zaha Hadid in Rome. The focus is about the comparison between the competition idea and the final realized project in relationship with the peculiarity of the urban context where the Museum is located: the Flaminio District. The future of the MAXXI seems therefore depend to a great deal on the functional nature of the plaza in front of the Museum, a space of crossing and relation between two important spaces in the city with the same sporting-cultural vocation: in one direction the Auditorium by Renzo Piano and the former Olympic Village; in the other direction, across the Tiber River, the Foro Italico with its large stadium and a number of famous works of architecture. This void, more than the building itself, will probably, in the end, reveal the sense of this “theater” of the city and finally stage Rome's most advanced twentyfirst-century culture. If anything, that which could be evoked of the baroque Rome about the MAXXI is not for its seductive and curvilinear forms, but precisely for the role of exterior space, as the true "representation" of the urban dimension of architecture. The text appears in this issue of Log focusing on architecture criticism. Each text examines therefore a different building.
The Theater of the City: The Museum of XXIst Century Arts
MASTRIGLI, GABRIELE
2012-01-01
Abstract
The text is a critical essay about the National Museum of XXIst Century Arts, realized by Zaha Hadid in Rome. The focus is about the comparison between the competition idea and the final realized project in relationship with the peculiarity of the urban context where the Museum is located: the Flaminio District. The future of the MAXXI seems therefore depend to a great deal on the functional nature of the plaza in front of the Museum, a space of crossing and relation between two important spaces in the city with the same sporting-cultural vocation: in one direction the Auditorium by Renzo Piano and the former Olympic Village; in the other direction, across the Tiber River, the Foro Italico with its large stadium and a number of famous works of architecture. This void, more than the building itself, will probably, in the end, reveal the sense of this “theater” of the city and finally stage Rome's most advanced twentyfirst-century culture. If anything, that which could be evoked of the baroque Rome about the MAXXI is not for its seductive and curvilinear forms, but precisely for the role of exterior space, as the true "representation" of the urban dimension of architecture. The text appears in this issue of Log focusing on architecture criticism. Each text examines therefore a different building.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
