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May
1, 2008, ROME (Reuters) - Rome's new mayor announced
his intention on Wednesday to tear down a museum
designed by U.S. architect Richard Meier that
critics decried as a modernist eyesore when it was
unveiled in the historic centre in 2006.
Meier's building is a
construction to be scrapped," said Mayor Gianni
Alemanno at a news conference as he outlined his
plans for Rome.
"It isn't the
top priority, obviously," he added, leaving the
timing of any future demolition unclear.
A glass, marble and
steel structure praised by many as a welcome
addition to Rome's more traditional architecture,
the Ara Pacis museum was the first modern building
to rise in the ancient centre since dictator Benito
Mussolini ruled Italy more than half a century ago.
It was built to house
the Ara Pacis, a 2,000-year-old altar commissioned
by Roman Emperor Augustus to commemorate the
pacification of what is today France and Spain.
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.
Although Meier's work
was the first building for decades to be built in
the ancient centre -- alongside famous landmarks
like Piazza Navona and the Spanish steps -- several
of his contemporaries have already been busy in
Rome's suburbs.
Award-winning Renzo
Piano opened Rome's Auditorium concert centre in
2002, a building credited with helping change Roman
attitudes to contemporary building.
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