In the third century BC, the ancient Romans invented concrete – a material that revolutionized ancient architecture. The appearance of this new medium provoked innovation, for it allowed the ancient Romans to overcome the limitations of post-and-lintel architecture that dictated the forms of Greek and Egyptian buildings. With this new capability, vast interior spaces could be created. Concrete buildings could be designed to create unusually spatial interiors that were open, rather than spaces punctuated by columns or piers. Architects used the medium to maximum effect – think of the Pantheon – making Roman architecture about the enclosure of volumes rather than the shaping of masses.
Some two thousand years later, Rome is the site of the next concrete revolution – though lack of public funding has made it a bit slow in coming. In this case, the protagonist is the British-Iraqi architect, Zaha Hadid, who in 1998 won a competition for the design of a new contemporary art museum in Rome. The Eternal City showed it’s long-standing affection for revolutionary architecture when it chose Hadid’s design for a sinuous serpentine cast concrete building, leaving behind the designs of Jean Nouvel, Steven Holl, and Rem Koolhaas.
Designated MAXXI (Museum of XXIst Century Art), the new contemporary art museum, is taking form on 30,000 square meters of land in Rome’s northern Flaminio district. Replacing a 19thC barracks, Hadid has designed almost 6000 square meters of sweeping galleries enclosed by curving windowless cast concrete walls. The roofs of the galleries, however, are not concrete but are fully glazed to allow natural lighting, so that the galleries are not boxes but are essentially troughs with glass lids. Alan Jones of SKM Anthony Hunts, which contributed structural design to Hadid’s competition scheme, commented on the difficulty of building such a structure, saying: “Only the floors and walls, but not the roof, provide structural stability.”
Radical as the building appears, from the street it will blend into the surrounding urban fabric. Its three stories of curving concrete walls will be hidden by a 19th century facade and its long sleek hallways (which will serve as galleries) will wind their way around extant buildings and culminate in a huge and light-filled three story atrium.
The building is slated to open in 2009.
