The prestigious Stirling Prize 2010 has been won by acclaimed modernist architect Zaha Hadid for the MAXXI building, Italy’s first national museum of contemporary art.

The Stirling Prize is the leading architecture award in the UK, and is overseen by RIBA (the Royal Institute of British Architects).

It’s fourth time lucky for Hadid, who has had three projects shortlisted in the past. Alongside what the judges called its “structural pyrotechnics”, MAXXI  “is rationally organised as five main suites. The building is bravely day lit with a sinuous roof of controllable skylights, louvres 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.”

MAXXI beat out other contenders including the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Neues Museum, Berlin [my favourite] for the award.

Interestingly, in the public popularity vote which included RIBA members, MAXXI placed only third, a long way behind the Ashmolean and Neues Museums, respectively. Far too modern for some tastes.

Tweet This Post

The HOK design team certainly like to think so. This is how the winning team envision the revamp of one of the San Francisco’s most treasured historical buildings, the Mint, built in 1874 and survivor of the devastating 1906 earthquake and fire.

It’s now looking at a future as a new  museum and visitor centre for the city.

As you can see, maintaining the character of the original is paramount and the covered courtyard is a clever approach to opening up the inner space to the outside, while showing off the original stonework – much of which will have to rescued from ‘modernisation’ over the years.

Having spent decades pumping out the ‘green’, remaining green will be a key feature of the Mint going forward. The building is a passively ventilated and naturally lit structure that will aim to maintain its openess to the environment after new musuem and visitor facilities have been added.

Interventions act as intermediaries between the exterior environment and internal spaces which require variable degrees of control and comfort.

The largest intervention will be that massive glass canopy roof over the historic courtyard. The will also collect water and fog at its corners to provide natural irrigation for a terraced roof garden. The roof garden will become a new public space also.

Source

Tweet This Post