Slated to open in February 2010 is Zaha Hadid’s plan for Maxxi, the Italian national museum of 21st century art. The museum is situated in the northern outskirts of Rome, near the grounds of the 1960 Olympics and a stone’s throw away from two other architectural attractions, Renzo Piano’s music hall and Pier Luigi Nervi’s sports palace. The museum, empty of artwork until the spring, will be the main exhibition this weekend during a two-day architectural preview for the citizens of Rome, an urban center steeped in ancient history and curiously devoid of any groundbreaking contemporary architecture.
As New York Times architecture critic (and our idol) Nicolai Ouroussoff writes, Hadid’s quietly incendiary design “jolts this city back to the present like a thunderclap.” Find out why after the jump.
