Housed in an extraordinary new building by noted architect, Zaha Hadid, Maxxi offers exhibitions of contemporary art and architecture.  The grand and dramatic interior spaces are a work of art in themselves.  Though it seems a bit out of the way, Maxxi can easily be reached by street car from the Piazza Poppolo.

Situated along the Tiber River, this elegant Museum designed by Richard Meier is the first new architectural space created in the historic center of Rome since the end of the Fascist era.  The Museum houses the Ara Pacis Augustae, an altar from the year 9 B.C .  Augustus himself said about the altar, “When I returned to Rome from Gaul and from Spain, in the consulship of Tiberius, Nero and Publius Quintilio, having brought to a satisfactory finish my works in these provinces, the Senate decreed that there should be consecrated in the Field of Mars an altar to the Augustan Peace and ordered that the officials, priests and vestal virgins should celebrate a sacrifice at it every year.”  On the lower level, there are changing exhibitions of art and design.

This Museum focuses on art of the 19th- and 20th-centuries and includes work by Balla, Boccioni, De Chirico, Morandi, and Fontana.  In addition to Italian artists, the collection features work by such international artists as Pollock, Miro, Mondrian and Kandinsky, Degas, Cezanne, Monet, van Gogh, and Rodin.