MAXXI’s curving galleries and intersecting levels make the museum feel like an urban route rather than a single monumental box. Zaha Hadid’s design responds to a former military site with a sequence of public spaces that invite visitors to move through contemporary art and architecture.
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The building’s walls bend and cross rather than meeting in a simple grid, so the route through MAXXI keeps unfolding as you move. Zaha Hadid’s proposal won an international competition launched in 1998 by Italy’s Ministry for Cultural Heritage.
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- Zaha Hadid’s design won a competition launched in 1998.
- The museum opened in 2010.
- MAXXI is Italy’s national museum devoted to 21st-century arts and architecture.
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