It was just about a year ago that I wrote here about an vandalism incident at the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome: a protestor threw paint and left toilet-paper rolls at Richard Meier’s travesty of a building, which does not suit its cultural surroundings. (If, as I was saying yesterday, Charles Birnbaum and his colleagues at The Cultural Landscape Foundation are worried about the lost of great landscapes, I’d hope they’d oppose Meier’s building, too.)
With help from the New York office of Corriere della Serra, I’ve learned that Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno (center), who’d first promised to demolish the building, then promised to get it fixed, is doing just that. This spring, Allemanno has gotten agreement from Meier to modify the area, drastically reducing the height of the wall between an open-air plaza and the museum, which houses the 2,000-year-old altar, and a heavily trafficked road along the Tiber river.
For its part, Rome will construct a wide pedestrian area along the river, from the museum down to the bank, and rebuild the road in a tunnel underneath it.
Meier (at left, above, closest to the offending wall) is going along with the plan because of that tunnel. He said his wall was meant to block out the noise and sight of road traffic. His critics complained that the wall obstructed the view of the facades of two churches, San Rocco all’Augusteo and San Girolamo degli Schiavoni.
The plan doesn’t deal with the design of the museum itself, but there’s little one can do about that except to tear it down and start over.
Meantime, the road-relocation/plaza project will cost 20 million euros, and Rome hasn’t yet said how that will be financed. It’s set to be done by 2013, not a minute too soon.
If you can read Italian, Corriere della Serra has two articles (here and here).
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Corriere della Serra