In Rome, history flows through every urban artery, providing a strong pulse to obscure outposts and tourist destinations alike. For architects, the Eternal City presents history as inspiration, obstacle, and challenge. With the National Museum of XXI Century Arts (MAXXI), which opened in May in the Flaminio district just outside the city’s historic core, Zaha Hadid treats it as a river — a fluid construct comprising a series of streams — converging, overlapping, then changing course. In the process, she taps into powerful flows of the Roman past and delivers her most convincing building to date — a sensual piece of construction that works both urbanistically and as a place to view art.
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