For the hordes of tourists stuck in lines for the Colosseum or queuing up to enter the Sistine Chapel, Rome’s 2,000-year history acts as a powerful magnet. But for contemporary architects working in the city, this same history can be a heavy weight. Purveyors of the new quickly feel hamstrung and defeated, with old battles between modernity and tradition waging on forever.
Odile Decq & Benoit Cornette’s extension of the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma (MACRO), one of the city’s two contemporary art museums (along with Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI [record, October 2010, page 82]), enters this conversation very much on the side of the modernists.
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