MAXXI, Zaha Hadid's most recently completed and largest building to date, opened in November of 2009.[1] Unlike most museums, MAXXI opened empty, both because the museum has not yet acquired enough artwork to fill the gallery spaces - the building is set to open as a functioning museum in the spring of 2010, at the earliest - and, having taken a hundred and fifty million euros and 10 years to complete, the matter of an empty building seemed secondary to the fact that it had been completed at all.[2] This idea of holding an "architectural preview" for the building is an interesting one; the empty spaces will not be so for long, and there is already quite a bit of speculation as to how the museum will feel when it actually contains art.[3]
Zaha Hadid, painting for MAXXI, 1997. Courtesy of the Design Museum of London and Zaha Hadid Architects.
Like most of Hadid's designs, MAXXI began with a design competition, which she won in 1997, and a painting, which you can see above.[4] As John Seabrook describes the building in his New Yorker profile of Hadid, the structure appears to be "made of stands, like a tangle of fettuccine," with these wavy spaces remarkably true to the sketches and paintings that Hadid created for the building's competition.[5] As this comment shows, Hadid has finally reached a point in her career where she is not only able to convince people that her building can and should be built, but that she can also get her designs built exactly the way has envisioned them.
Set in a drowsy neighborhood of early-20th-century apartment buildings and former army barracks, called Flaminio, the museum, at first glance appears surprisingly sedate.[6] But as Nicolai Ouroussoff describes in his New York Times review, "the energy builds as you walk towards it. The best route is along the Via Luigi Poletti, which approaches the site at an angle from the northwest...The path narrows as it approaches the main entry, creating a sense of acceleration."[7] This sense of acceleration goes along with Hadid's design of the building. Unlike most museums, there is no main facade, and no real front or back.[8] In fact, the most dramatic part of the building is a cantilevered gallery that juts out from the third floor, but which faces away from the main enterance.[9]
And then, of course, is the museum's interior. "A bookstore, cafe and information counter are scattered informally around the hall; corridors snake off in different directions. A monumental black staircase climbs up through the space, one end disappearing into a narrow canyonlike crevice and hinting at more mysteries to come."[10] What a wonderful description of this space. Not only do you get a sense of what you would see when walking into this museum, but it also captures a common sense that all of articles and reviews of the building can't help but discuss: the is an empty museum, and no one is sure yet what the space will feel like once it's filled. Hadid has created a flexible system of hanging partitions that can be used to divide the wide-open galleries into smaller spaces, and as one ascends the building, there are several discrete spaces on different levels, but no one know how well these galleries will work yet.[11]
Zaha Hadid's work has finally been given the recognition it deserves, and MAXXI is only the beginning. One major work of Hadid's to look forward to is her East London Aquatics Center, to be the architectural showpiece of the 2012 Summer Olympics, and which will be her first completed major building in her adopted country.[12] In addition to entering architecture competitions (Zaha Hadid Architeture - ZHA - enters about 30 a year), Hadid has designed small projects, such as furniture and shoes.[13] What this all shows, however, is Hadid's continual desire to design - regardless of scale and the public's expectations - whether her great success as an architect continues to bring in commissions or not.
[1] John Seabrook, "The Abstractionist: Zaha Hadid's unfettered invention," The New Yorker,
December 21 & 28, 2009, 113.
[2] Ibid., 124.
[3] Nicolai Ouroussoff, "Modern Lines for the Eternal City," The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/arts/design/12zaha.html (accessed January 27, 2010).
[4] Design Museum online, "Zaha Hadid: Archiect (1950-)," http://designmuseum.org/design/zaha-hadid (accessed January 27, 2010).
[5] John Seabrook, "The Abstractionist: Zaha Hadid's unfettered invention," The New Yorker, December 21 & 28, 2009, 124.
[6] Nicolai Ouroussoff, "Modern Lines for the Eternal City," The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/arts/design/12zaha.html (accessed January 27, 2010).
[7] Ibid.
[8] John Seabrook, "The Abstractionist: Zaha Hadid's unfettered invention," The New Yorker, December 21 & 28, 2009, 124.
[9] Ibid., 124.
[10] Nicolai Ouroussoff, "Modern Lines for the Eternal City," The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/arts/design/12zaha.html (accessed January 27, 2010).
[11] Ibid.
[12] John Seabrook, "The Abstractionist: Zaha Hadid's unfettered invention," The New Yorker, December 21 & 28, 2009, 114-5.
[13] Ibid., 114-5.
How do architects dream up such things? Amazing.
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