Marina Rinaldi Experience

If you will be in Rome for holidays, out of all the many terraces that observe Rome from up high, there is one that opens out among the roofs of the Trieste neighbourhood, just a short walk from Villa Torlonia and from the historically decorated Coppedè buildings, settled firmly atop the old Peroni factory.

Macro - ©Odile Decq

Its floors are arranged irregularly, black and shiny, forcing whoever walks to adjust their step. In the middle, a glass fountain is ready to house a veil of water while all around Plexiglas canopies and panels – one after the other – making a clean break of the surrounding baroque-type buildings and council houses. It feels like Paris but it’s a corner of the Capital. And inside MACRO is enclosed, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, which was shown to us for a few days as a preview awaiting the official opening which should be in autumn.

The architect who saw to the extension, Odile Decq – yes her, French – thought of it as an interlaced design of ramps and stairs beginning inside the yard of the old building and winding up amongst the various floors until it meets up in a common space, a kind of square, which can also be reached without going to the museum, where you can stay, walk through and enjoy the views the district has in store for you. A moving space, in its shape and in its intentions, that wishes to evoke the sensations of a walk through the old part of Rome and be a creative laboratory at the same time.

However, all attempts to compare it to MAXXI, an exercise (for better or for worse) that many delighted in – considering the closeness of their birth – have absolutely no meaning. If not for the fact they were both signed by two women, completely different in style and culture but both obstinate, smart and capable, to which the difficult task was given to bring Contemporary Art to Rome. And now, (or rather from next autumn) all you have to do is walk out on a terrace to have a taste.

Where and when? MACRO, Rome, via Reggio Emilia, 54. Tuesday-Sunday 9am -7pm.