Architettura

Zaha Hadid Architects win RIBA Stirling Prize for MAXXI Museum, Rome

At a ceremony in London on 2nd October, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awarded this year's Stirling Prize to Zaha Hadid Architects for the MAXXI: National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome.  The RIBA Stirling Prize is given to the project built or designed in Britain deemed to have made the greatest contribution to architecture.

Photos by Bernard Touillon

“It's a great honour to receive the award. It means so much to me.” says Hadid. “It is recognition of what started 30 years ago in London as projections of a possible future architecture. My work developed entirely because I live and work in the UK. It is a very British situation.”

The 2010 RIBA Stirling Prize Jury said:
“MAXXI is described as a building for the staging of art, and whilst provocative at many levels, this project shows a calmness that belies the complexities of its form and organization. The museum, for all its structural pyrotechnics, is rationally organized as five main suites. The building is bravely day lit with a sinuous roof of controllable skylights, louvers and beams which orientate and excite the visitor and create uplifting spaces. This is a mature piece of architecture, the distillation of years of experimentation, only a fraction of which ever got built.  It is the quintessence of Zaha's constant attempt to create a landscape as a series of cavernous spaces drawn with a free, roving line. The resulting piece, rather than prescribing routes, gives the visitor a sense of exploration. It is perhaps her best work to date.”

Photo by Henry Bourne for British Vogue

Ruth Reed, RIBA President, presented the award to Zaha Hadid. “In MAXXI we have a much deserved winner, and I am delighted to award Zaha Hadid Architects with architecture's highest accolade”, said Reed.