Rome, Italy

MAXXI — National Museum of 21st Century Arts

MAXXI opened in 2010 as Italy's national museum dedicated to the creativity of the twenty-first century. Its building, by Zaha Hadid, is composed of sweeping, fluid concrete forms and is itself recognized as an award-winning landmark of contemporary architecture. Unusually, MAXXI houses two distinct institutions under one roof: MAXXI Arte and MAXXI Architettura, treating contemporary art and architecture as parallel and interconnected fields. It runs an active program of exhibitions, commissions, and public events, and maintains a significant architecture collection and archive. MAXXI's relevance lies in giving Italy — a country famed above all for its historic art — a serious, forward-looking national platform for the contemporary, and in the building's status as a key work of twenty-first-century design.

Opened in 2010 in Zaha Hadid's fluid concrete building; Italy's national 21st-century arts museum.