In 1998 the Special Superintendency for Contemporary Art, under appointment from the Minister for Cultural Heritage, advertised an international call for tenders for the design of a new National Arts Centre dedicated to contemporary art and architecture, to be located in Rome. The competition, which received 273 submissions, was awarded to the architect Zaha Hadid for her convincing and skilful integration within the urban context, the result of an innovative and highly creative architectural solution. The final design confirms the idea of  an urban campus, where the traditional notion of building is broadened beyond the interior spaces of the museum to include the entire city. The complexity of shapes, their sinuous outline and the variation and overlapping of dimensions determine a highly complex spatial and functional structure. The two museums - MAXXI art and MAXXI architecture - revolve around the full-height grand hall that connects with the reception area, cafeteria, bookshop, educational spaces, auditorium, live event halls, temporary exhibition galleries
and the spaces containing the permanent graphics and photography collections. A multiplicity of spaces that coexist in a sequence
of suites characterised by the controlled use of natural light.