iMAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century ArtsFlaminio
Vitalita dell'architettura italiana 1946-2026
An 80-year survey of Italian architectural ideas, projects and visions, tracing eight decades of the Republic from the post-war years to contemporary practice and future scenarios.
More in Rome
Near the start, a Milan cemetery monument has been flattened. Matilde Cassani redrew BBPR's memorial to the victims of the Nazi camps as a single two-dimensional front, and swapped its epitaphs for coloured ribbons from many rituals and metal shapes of fruit, offerings from several faiths.
You walk in past eight screens of architects, Renzo Piano and Massimiliano Fuksas among them, talking about what the postwar years left them. Archive rooms on the Republic's housing, museums, schools and transport follow. Then the core: eight studios the curators call the Erasmus generation, each with a large table showing how it works and an Allegra Martin photograph of one defining building. Projects by younger NXT architects close the show in the Archive Centre.
Critics split. Artribune's Marta Atzeni said it goes beyond celebration; Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi called it "opaca, confusa e disarticolata", and Valerio Paolo Mosco called the missing catalogue unacceptable. It fills Gallery KME, comes with MAXXI's 15 EUR ticket (14 online), has an audioguide, and closes 15 November.
Look for
Contributo Libero, Matilde Cassani's monument
BBPR's cubic Milan memorial reduced to one flat front, its epitaphs replaced by coloured ritual ribbons and metal fruit shapes hung as offerings.
The eight interview screens
Look for Renzo Piano, Paola Viganò, Franco Purini and five others at the entrance, each talking about the postwar legacy they inherited.
The Erasmus generation tables
Each of eight studios lays out its method on a large table: Labics with wooden models, Giulia de Appolonia with full-size building fragments, ELASTICO Farm with construction drawings.
Allegra Martin's photographs
Martin travelled Italy and Europe to photograph the one building each studio calls foundational, such as de Appolonia's public works in Sesto Calende.
The NXT screens and Rubato
A row of screens at the Archive Centre entrance plays videos of every YAP and NXT edition since 2011, then the material for HPO's Rubato, a piazza seating structure with a soundscape.
Good for
- Going Solo
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want a clear argument: critic Luigi Prestinenza Puglisi found no thesis or guiding idea in it.
Also at MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts
On now nearby
Image credits
5
- Vitalita dell'architettura italiana 1946-2026Courtesy of MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Arts
- Marina Bindella. CosmografieCourtesy of Museo Carlo Bilotti
- AEGYPTUS. Dal Nilo al Mediterraneo. Oasi e deserto in epoca romanaCourtesy of National Roman Museum - Palazzo Massimo
- Le Litanie della Vergine di Mario Deluigi. Dialogue between the Sacred and AbstractionCourtesy of Vatican Museums
- MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century ArtsAlbertSpiegelei, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0