Overview

Another January escape from the winter cold took me to Rome, where a positively tropical 15°C felt like a luxury compared to home. It’s a city that never really switches off visually—walking through Rome often feels like stepping into an open-air museum, with layers of history revealed on nearly every street.

Modern architecture isn’t as prominent or easy to come by, which made the journey to MAXXI—the National Museum of 21st Century Arts—all the more intentional. Designed by Zaha Hadid, one of my favourite architects, the building itself was a major draw. The structure is everything you’d expect from her work: fluid lines, layered concrete forms, and a sense of movement that shifts as you walk through and around it. Inside, the museum houses a wide range of contemporary exhibitions, spanning modern fashion, cinema, art, and architecture. It offered a welcome contrast to the visual language of the city outside, and a chance to reset creatively.