Wow!! Very cool. Looks reminiscent of CAC but taken to a whole new level of crashing confusion. Thanks for posting these.

the building looks complete, given that the opening is 4.5 months away -

i agree with lb, as my mind immediately linked this building to the CAC...which is not bad, as the cac is my favorite zaha building...i have a feeling she was holding back (on both cases) and she is more successful then...or maybe it's my love for concrete...

it's an interesting pastiche, a kind of compilation or best of/greatest hits of her pre-blob projects.

Cac: 8600 m²
Maxxi: Circa 30 000 m²

compare to CAC, its much more in the flow / horizontality really ( haven't visited CAC but from vids and pics..). Compare to a Liebeskin ( Berlin / Osnabrück ) its not as confused but easier to understand..

N

check the google maps of the maxxi to understand the mass plan.

<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.fr/?ie=UTF8&t=h&hq=&hnear=Rome,+Latium,+Italie&ll=41.928719,12.465947&spn=0.001397,0.00228&z=18&output=embed"></iframe><br /><small>HERE FOR GOOGLE MAPS</small>

Nice, thanks for the pictures!
I was there a few months ago hanging on the outside construction fence taking pictures wondering what was on the inside.
I'm jealous - but something that may get me back to Rome some day.

Zaha rocks.

Where's the viewing space?

I'm living in Rome now, and I hope they open it to the public before they put up the first show.... great photos.

how did you manage to get inside?

Interesting to view it w/o any art work. Hope the florescents don't interfere with the finished product.

great pictures! Thanks for sharing.

ha very cool. thanks for sharing and i enjoy the long description of your thoughts about the MAXXi. we tried to visit this 3 years ago when we were studying in Rome. It had a sign up with the projected completion date which had already past. Like anything in Rome/Southern Italy nothing happens on time, i am very glad to finally see it. I will be interested to visit and see the spatial effect of moving through these spaces.

there will be an "invitation-only" architectural preview on the 13th Nov. i assume this means that the main spaces will be complete, but the initial exhibition will not yet be installed.

Yes, cool and thanks. I was wondering that. I was dreading such a beautiful look -- so far -- building being a "hallway" museum.

Modern art requires some distance when viewing work. So I was afraid this would be a little bit of a "Guggenheim" debacle.

thnx for head ups
basically i was very lucky to be there when there was an open door :)

I thought again about the things that bug me in the project: one beeing the lack of light despite glass roofs with too complex layers, and the other one beeing the lack of openings / windows from the main galleries.

- Natural light: compare to any Piano project in the same field: its really really weak
- lack of openings: I know flows requires tubes, and tubes do not like openings, but this is Rome, there is not so much view in the area, but there is perspectives, need of air, longer distance view and the building is not so generous in this area.

I wonder if pushing too far an idea based on form implies creating flaws...We are going to see more and more shape oriented, computer created architecture in this century, and their is a risk that basic architectural needs will be forgotten in the process:
- emotion
- light
- function
- integration
- durability
etc...

Nils

http://c-monster.net/blog1/2009/04/03/maxxi-padding/

found another website with an older visit...

Nils

nils: "We are going to see more and more shape oriented, computer created architecture in this century, and their is a risk that basic architectural needs will be forgotten in the process"

i share the same fear...and am starting to see students readily shifting into computer based process, without any development of intuition...

having said that, i am not sure if this building exemplifies that extreme...(then again, i have not been there!)

simples: indeed this building is not a full example of that tendency: its smart as hell, displays very high level of intelligence and subtility: we are talking about high class stuff here....
its just that Zaha's new tendency toward blobacious architecture is leading software assisted geeks to conceive forms that due to the size and fact that you have people in them are called architecture...pretty scary...
Its a new form of tabula rasa, not on the social / historic topic but based only on the i can do it motto. A bit scary!

N

nils...i agree...but i think the motto is "it can do"...

another motto seems to be 'why? because we can.'

like others have said, the palette is obviously the same as the cac, as are many of the moves. but what's different for me here is critical: where the cac is simple, lean, and clear, this looks awfully busy.

Steven: indeed

Its smartly done, but in a way to show skills which shouldn't be a goal after all in a building...its powerin itself into big buildings league rather than taking the time to do it with subtelness

N

here are finally the official pictures....glad i beat it by a few ;)

Nils

Only one picture of the exhibition space. I like it even less.

TOO NARROW.

well the strange thing is the need for artificial light in a museum...We are far away from renzo's or kahn's light work..
N

update!

Zaha's MAXXI looks awesome. Zaha's work is polarizing for me: I love some of it and I wish some of it would be wiped off both the world and my brain.

Also, if you click through the audio slideshow you get a funny overlapping of words and images. Different every time!

didn't see this posted already/ 'scuse if its already up:

NYT review of the Maxxi

NYT has a great slideshow on the building I think the museum is lovely. its of the few buildings I have seen that thoughtfully interprets infrastructural form to mean something architectural.

old lady zaha has a practice, swisheee, wishee, whoah, with a snake-shape here, and spaghetti plop there, here a swoosh everywhere a kahpootz... and a pritzker

lb,

That's a great presentation!

Thanks.

I got in for the second 'preview' weekend. It's really a great space, and it seems like it should be just fine for art. There's plenty of natural light in the exhibition space, augmented of course, and controlled by louvers.

i'll be curious to see the first exhibit in the spring.

i've written a little more extensively on the building here, if anyone's interested.

"There's plenty of natural light in the exhibition space"

Did we get inside the same building???
The three or four layers roofs are just eating light...the exhibition spaces are so dark the effort displayed to ribbon the structure could have been spared for lets say buy something to display...

As for your review, the pictures summarize the building at once: a nice, interesting atrium, but where the hell is the museum?...where is the function?

On a more theorical point of view...is it the purpose of a building built by taxpayers to be a modern ruin? yes its a new spatial experience, but i'm still sceptical about the trivialization of zaha's work. Like Bilbao one is good, but what about the endless possibilities of sisterships based on the same principles. Are we still in architecture or randomisation and multiplication of shapes and forms...?
It is a vast debate...

N.