Scrapping Richard Meier

Rome mayor aims to tear down Richard Meier museum

Alemanno, who this week became the first right-wing politician elected Rome mayor since Mussolini’s time, is among those critics who thought the classical Ara Pacis should never have been housed in such a modern structure.

One critic compared it to a giant petrol station, while another called it “an indecent cesspit”, when it was unveiled in 2006.

Alemanno, who ran on a security platform targeting illegal immigrants, said the Ara Pacis was not the only architectural project by his left-leaning predecessors he planned to review.

“We’re committed to looking at the constructions carried out in the historic centre, but the top emergencies are others,” he said.

Now, in general new architecture gets pilloried unfairly from time to time, and when I first read this article, familiar with the architect but neither the structure nor the mayor, the familiar hackles rose to defend the artiste against the philistines and then I took a look at the structure. Have you seen this thing? And to place this 70s sort of coffee table architecture into sublime classical Rome? It looks like a typical high school. I just might fly down there and help out. Here it is.