New exhibitions surrounding architecture

Zaha Hadid in Italy
Yona Friedman. Mobile Architecture, People’s Architecture
and the reconstruction of the Teatrino Scientifico by Franco Purini and Laura Thermes

From Friday, June 23, 2017 MAXXI will be presenting its tribute to contemporary architecture with the exhibitions dedicated to two undisputed masters of world architecture, Zaha Hadid and Yona Friedman and with the partial reconstruction in the museum piazza of a building symbolising the cultural history of the city of Rome: the Teatrino Scientifico by Franco Purini and Laura Thermes.

Zaha Hadid in Italy
One of the most influential and visionary architects of our time, Zaha Hadid redefined the architecture of the 21st century, capturing the imagination of the whole world. A year after her sudden death, MAXXI is hosting from June 23, 2017 to January 14, 2018 Zaha Hadid in Italy, curated by Margherita Guccione (Director MAXXI Architettura) and Woody Yao (Director Zaha Hadid Design).

Organized in collaboration with Zaha Hadid Design, Zaha Hadid Architects and the Zaha Hadid Foundation, the exhibition intends to draw attention to the architect’s intensive and enduring relationship with Italy through projects such as the Terminal Marittimo in Salerno, the Messner Mountain Museum at Plan de Corones, City Life in Milan and, naturally, MAXXI itself. Presented in the spaces of the museum’s spectacular Gallery 5, with the great glass wall overlooking the piazza, the exhibition takes a 360-degree look at Hadid’s work and thinking: from the pictorial and conceptual sketches to the three-dimensional models, from virtual renderings to interdisciplinary studies, together with objects, videos and photographs revealing her constant pioneering and experimental research efforts. Ample space has been devoted to Zaha’s relationship with design and the Made in Italy phenomenon with which she had enjoyed interesting and repeated creative and productive contacts. 

Yona Friedman. Mobile Architecture, People’s Architecture
Yona Friedman (Budapest 1923), a visionary architect, an explosive figure who went beyond all disciplinary boundaries and whose thinking is extraordinarily topical, is the subject of the exhibition Yona Friedman. Mobile Architecture, People’s Architecture, curated by Gong Yan and Elena Motisi, open from June 23 to October 29, 2017. Organized by Power Station of Art, Shanghai—where it was presented in 2015—this major show will be presented at MAXXI in a revised form conceived together with the architect.

For Friedman anyone is capable of designing and realising their own architecture, from a house to a “space city” floating above real cities: for this exhibition his celebrated Ville Spatiale shifts to Rome, with a fragment being deposited in the museum. This is joined by previously unseen drawings from the Sixties, his mobile and “improvised” structures together with instructions for building them, photomontages, videos and a selection of animated films. As Friedman believes that the contemporary museum should exhibit that which is truly important to people, he has also realised a temporary Street Museum with objects belongs to the citizens.

The Ephemeral On Stage. Tribute to the Estate Romana’s Teatrino Scientifico
On the occasion of its 40th anniversary, the Estate Romana conceived and promoted by Renato Nicolini, which in the Seventies took cultural initiatives outside their traditional settings and into the public domain, is being revived at MAXXI with the partial reconstruction of one of its most iconic features: the Teatrino Scientifico by Franco Purini and Laura Thermes from 1979. An initiative curated by Pippo Ciorra, with a programme of shows, conferences and workshops focussing on the heritage and the currency of the project and an exhibition of designs by young architects selected via the European competition Future Architecture Platform with a series of projects for public spaces in Rome. In collaboration with the Purini Thermes studio the museum is reconstructing in the piazza part of the original theatre, conceptually reproposing what Nicolini loved to call the Meraviglioso Urbano and offering an exceptional setting for MAXXI’s rich programme of events for a New Roman Summer.