"The longer I'm involved in this the more bizarre it seems,'' said Meier, who accuses Alemanno of animosity toward the arts.

And this nugget from Culture Minister Sandro Bondi:

"It's really difficult for me to find beauty in contemporary art,'' said Bondi in an interview in the current issue of Italian women's magazine Grazia. "If I visit a show, like many people I pretend to understand. But sincerely, I don't understand.''

I have to say that if i was the Culture Minister of any country I would make it and important part of my job to understand contemporary art. I may not like it - but I would know how to talk about it in a critical, informed manner - and not just say "I pretend to understand". This is shameful - I hope that something was lost in the translation of this quote.

Aug. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's government plans to tear down part of a Rome museum designed by U.S. architect Richard Meier, Corriere della Sera said, citing comments by Culture Undersecretary Francesco Giro.

A travertine stone wall at the Ara Pacis museum will be removed to facilitate viewing of two historic churches in the same square that houses the 2,000-year-old Mausoleum of Roman Emperor Augustus, Giro said yesterday at the museum, according to the report. A section of another travertine wall connected to the museum also will be knocked down, he said.

Giro said Roman Mayor Giovanni Alemanno agrees on the plan, and a joint meeting between the mayor's office and the Culture Ministry will be held in September or October to discuss technical issues, according to Corriere.

The Meier-designed museum was inaugurated in 2006 and houses the Ara Pacis, an altar constructed in 9 B.C. to commemorate the peace following Rome's Gallic and Spanish campaigns.

Photo courtesy of and copyrighted by World Architecture News, and Mahalie & Uglynoid

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.

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.

"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.

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.

Contemporary Italian artist Mimmo Paladino and music legend Brain Eno have a new, site specific exhibit at the Ara Pacis Museum:

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.

"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.

"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."

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.

Just a snippet from an excellent, concise article from the Guardian about the new Gagosian gallery in Rome.