Ara Pacis Museum, Rome, Italy
The new Ara Pacis Museum in Rome opened in the spring of 2006. The museum was designed by the international architect Richard Meier and has been subject to much controversy and criticism. The Ara Pacis, a more than 2,000 year old "Altar of Peace" that was used (paradoxically) for sacrifices, is a commanding work of Roman art and architecture that had been lost to civilization for centuries.|
Ara Pacis Museum (Museo dell'Ara Pacis) Official Website: http://www.arapacis.it/ Address: Lungotevere in Augusta - 00100 Roma Opening Hours: Tuesday to Sunday 9:00 AM to 7:00 PM, 24th and 31st December 9:00 AM to 2:00 PM (the ticket office closes an hour in advance) Closed Mondays, January 1st, May 1st and December 25th Admission: Full price € 6.50 Reductions € 4.50 More details here. |
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Mimmo Paladino - Brian Eno: images from the Ara Pacis
The official Ara Pacis Museum website has a gallery of images from the Mimmo Paladino, Brian Eno exhibit. Nice photos but too small!
Red glass box outside the Ara Pacis Museum?
Can anyone shed some light on what this is:
Photo courtesy of and copyrighted by World Architecture News, and Mahalie & Uglynoid
Ara Pacis Museum controversy quiet for now
A recent editorial in World Architecture News says that the controversy about the Ara Pacis Museum possible being razed is quieting down:
Mary Lou Bunn, a communications spokesperson for Richard Meier’s office said, “things have been quiet” (since the announcement was made). She added that Meier “is willing to talk to the Mayor” about the matter and that “people at the firm are very attached to the project.” Ms. Bunn said that the Italian daily, the Corriere della Sera, had polled its readers about the matter with the results being that somewhere near 70% of respondents want the building to stay.
As I stated earlier, I think the odds of anything happening to this museum are close to zero. It is simple populist politics to make statements like Alemmano did, which the Italians are quite good at. At the same time, the article quotes a poll by Corriere della Sera showing that the "people" want the building to stay. There are other papers in Italy that if polled would probably show the opposite.
Italy needed fascism, says the new Duce
Rome's new mayor continues to make news:
Alemanno praised a district south of Rome, which Mussolini built as a symbol of fascism, calling it an example of “architecture that was part of the modernisation process and gave importance to Italy’s cultural identity”. The EUR district’s monumental style, built for an international exhibition that was abandoned because of the war, was modelled on that of ancient Rome.
After living here for a few years you start to understand the Italians fascination with Mussolini - but it is a false hope, based on nostalgia and selective memories (the trains ran on time, the modernizing of the infrastructure, etc.). It is much like the American Right's fascination with the post WWII boom and the longing for the "good old days" of a dad that worked and a mom that stayed home and baked cookies. These are just cultural myths - and even if they were real for a moment in time, they were eventually unsustainable. Instead of looking to the past we all should be looking forward, but as always, it is easier to blame others and long for better things than to roll up your sleeves and actually do something. Shipping 20,000 Romanians out of Italy isn't really going to stop the problems in Rome.
Rome's new mayor threatens to demolish the Ara Pacis Museum
So while we were on holiday in Sorrento this news broke - which explains the spike in traffic to the site the last few days. Personally it sounds like a lot of hot air, and a lot of free publicity for the new (reportedly far right) mayor. This seems to be a tried and true trick of Italian politicians. Does anyone think that a brand new building like this is going to be razed? Would the Romans want to be compared to the Taliban? I don't think so - but for now it generates some news, sells some newspapers and makes the new mayor look tough.
"The famous American architect Richard Meier has denounced as incredible plans by Rome’s new right-wing mayor to dismantle a state-of-the-art museum designed by Mr Meier that opened just two years ago.The white marble, glass and steel structure housing the Ara Pacis, an ancient Roman altar with a sculptured frieze on the banks of the Tiber, is regarded by some architectural experts as a masterpiece. Others, however, find it hideous, with some critics dismissing it as being “like a suburban swimming pool or a giant petrol station”. Silvio Berlusconi, whose centre-Right alliance won a sweeping victory in national elections last month, once described it as monstrous.
Gianni Alemanno, a member of the “post-Fascist” Alleanza Nazionale who overturned decades of centre-Left rule in a run-off election on Sunday and Monday, said bluntly that “Meier’s building is a construction to be scrapped”. He added that this was not his” top priority”, leaving the timing of the demolition unclear."
More here.
More photos of the Valentino exhibit
Just came across another batch of photos from the Valentino exhibit at a site called "eternally cool". Some nice shots in there.
DISSONANZE 08 at the Ara Pacis Museum
Here is another event slated to take place at the Ara Pacis Museum:
Dissonanze, the festival for electronic music and multimedia art returns to Rome for the eighth year...The 2008 edition of Dissonanze will also involve new spaces. The historic and architecturally acclaimed PALAZZO DEI CONGRESSI and L’AUDITORIUM PARCO DELLA MUSICA (which last year hosted the great Karlheinz Stockhausen: first and foremost) will remain this year – but another extraordinary space, the museum of the ancient l’ARA PACIS, will be added to the list.
The above is from BERLINISTA.
Mimmo Paladino | Brian Eno: a work for the Ara Pacis
This event, which could well be described as long-awaited, is the second time that these two indisputably important contributors to contemporary culture have worked together; the first being almost ten years ago in 1999 at London’s “Round House”.
I can't find many details about the exhibit at this point - I am hoping there is some more coverage once it opens. From 11 March to 11 May, 2008.
Continue reading "Mimmo Paladino | Brian Eno: a work for the Ara Pacis" »
Notes on the Ara Pacis
Came across and interesting blog post about the Ara Pacis Museum:
"The contemporary fetishization of this moment in history comes from a desire to remember Rome's one-time value and, in turn, anticipate the return of this value. The construction of this new museum is a direct act of myth-making. This agenda is clearly mapped out in the ichnography of the building. The fear of fire, or at least the institutionalized residue of a fear of fire, presumably truly felt by someone at some time but we don't know who, introduces a second logic with a second ichnography. This system is laid out over the first system, using the architecture as its starting point. In this interplay between the two logics, two hands are obviously at play with two different agendas."
Don't know if I agree with the premise - but I will be sure to take note of the fire extinguishers on my next visit.
Pledges of Empire: The Ara Pacis and the Donations of Rome
From the American Journal of Archaeology, some new Ara Pacis scholarship:
"The Ara Pacis presents the most important surviving programmatic statement of the middle years of the Augustan principate. Recent scholarship has focused on the identity and significance of the altar’s children, but progress has been constrained by assumptions about Augustus’ dynastic ambitions. The altar reflects the political realities and ideals of the year 13 B.C.E., when adult generals were in ascendance, foreign children took center stage, and the political prospects of Gaius and Lucius Caesar were still uncertain."
There is a little more here, and it seems the full article will be posted in PDF format at some point.
Oh no - Rick Steves has discovered the Ara Pacis!
Expect visitors to increase in 2008:
And travelers are rediscovering the Ara Pacis -- the first-century "Altar of Peace" built by Emperor Augustus to kick off the Pax Romana. It's wonderfully displayed in a state-of-the-art exhibit housed in a starkly modern building -- the first new construction in Rome's old center since 1938.
I love to hate this guy - from the TV show to the books to the armies of people that mob places he recommends, but then I read a very surprising interview of him that has made me soften my view - a bit. More after the fold.
Continue reading "Oh no - Rick Steves has discovered the Ara Pacis!" »
The eternal city
"And Rome is starting to look more contemporary - in a uniquely Roman way. American architect Richard Meier's new museum for the Ara Pacis, opened in 2006, has been attacked as a coldly modernist intrusion into the city's past, and yet, what was more shocking, seeing it last summer, was an exhibition of dresses by Valentino that cluttered Meier's cool space. Valentino's opulently sheethed mannequins turned good taste into bad, and made the new building and the ancient Roman treasure it houses seem like backdrops for a Fellini film."
Just a snippet from an excellent, concise article from the Guardian about the new Gagosian gallery in Rome.
More pictures from the Valentino show
I think the show is over now, but there are still blog postings coming out with photos - here is a new one we came across with some different photos that what we have seen before.
Video Interview with Ara Pacis Architect Richard Meier
Vintage Ara Pacis Museum postcard
Someone from the very interesting website/blog "Continuity in Architecture" has made an awesome find of this postcard of the original Ara Pacis Museum. Click on the image to see the larger version at their site.
