'Modernist sewer' falls foul of Rome's Mayor

Rome's most controversial modern building, designed by the American architect Richard Meier, could soon be dismantled and moved out of the city centre under proposals by the new Mayor, Gianni Alemanno.

The Ara Pacis Museum, an assemblage of hulking travertine walls, flat white roofs and plate glass on the banks of the Tiber, was the first modernist building to rise in Rome's historical heart alongside famous landmarks such as the Spanish Steps and the Trevi Fountain since the end of the war. But since it was inaugurated two years ago the building has become the butt of furious criticism, and during his first press conference as Mayor, Mr Alemanno said he would make good on his campaign promise to banish it.

"Meier's building is a construction to be scrapped," he said. "The building should be removed," he declared, "though obviously it's not my first priority".

It was a warning volley, a declaration that Mr Alemanno, a neo-Fascist leader in his youth, intends to be quite as tough and decisive in office as he had promised on the campaign trail. And the holy cows raised and pampered during the 15 years in which the city was ruled by the centre-left should be prepared for the abattoir.

The bulldozers will not be going to work on the Ara Pacis any day soon – Mr Alemanno later added that he would submit the building's future to a referendum – but for the Italian right the building has become the defining symbol of a style of government that dominated the capital for 15 years.

"If our citizens opt not to keep it, we will move it to the suburbs," Mr Alemanno explained. "It is an issue of compatibility: the casing is in a baroque part of the city, and that style suits the area. It is not a priority, but I think that some projects were excessively invasive."

Designed by Meier, a New York-based late-modernist, the building houses the Ara Pacis, the colossal monument in honour of Emperor Augustus re-discovered in the late 19th century. Mussolini installed it by the banks of the Tiber in a new building designed by the Fascist architect Vittorio Morpurgo. In the mid-1990s, the then mayor, Francesco Rutelli, who was defeated by Mr Alemanno in this week's mayoral election, commissioned Meier to design a new building to replace the ageing original.

Critics objected that Mr Rutelli chose Meier without proper consultation. Chief among them was Vittorio Sgarbi, the fogeyish art critic and a member of Silvio Berlusconi's previous government, who said Mr Rutelli had given Meier the job "in the style of a Renaissance lord" and that the result was akin to "a Californian gas stand" and "a sewer". Mr Sgarbi recently set fire to a model of the museum and recommended it be dismantled and reincarnated in the suburbs as a pizzeria.

Contacted in New York, Meier said he was stunned by the controversy over a building that meant a lot to him. "I've been told," he added, "that the Ara Pacis has become the third most popular tourist destination in the city, after St Peter's and the Colosseum." He said he would travel to Rome to confront Mr Alemanno.

Mr Alemanno's arrival at Rome City Hall has already set Italy's cultural stars bemoaning the end of a golden age. There is talk that the city's film festival may be closed down so that Italy can concentrate on Venice. And yesterday Mr Alemanno also disclosed that he might move the Notte Bianca music festival from its September spot, as the city already had enough tourists at that time.