MAXXI

We were eager to check out the brand new Museum of 21st Century Art. Housed in a Zaha Hadid building, this was going to provide our first chance to experience a Hadid building first hand. And it had all of the expansive outdoor gathering spaces and interior galleries that you'd expect in a contemporary art museum. But then it had some weirdness--strange red poles in the lobby that appeared to have no function and a form that resembled all the bad things from 1980s design, really bad lighting in the lobby that made you question whether it was day or night. And, sadly, the building was already starting to wear badly. But we did get to see a couple of great shows-- one on contemporary projection-based art and one on architectural models.