January 2009

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As Londoners began voting in the mayoral elections, the story broke that Rome’s newly-elected right-wing mayor, Gianni Alemmano, pledged to tear down buildings constructed by his left-wing predecessor, including the Ara Pacis Museum designed by US architect and recipient of architecture’s Pritzker Prize, Richard Meier.

The museum, a modernist glass, marble and steel structure housing the Ara Pacis – a 2,000 year-old altar created by the Roman emperor Augustus, met with criticism when it opened in 2006 for its lack of sensitivity to the surrounding architecture and is cited as an example by those who argue that contemporary architecture is all too often a statement of architectural self-importance. Nor is the Ara Pacis a stranger to political ends – Mussolini reinstalled the altar to endorse his Fascist state through an association with the classical world.

In London, too, architecture hit the political mayoral agenda. Artists Tracy Emin, Dinos Chapman, Rachel Whiteread, Gary Hume and Cornelia Parker protested against Livingstone’s proposed Shoreditch Tower scheme – a development of high-rise buildings in London’s artist community – warning he could no longer depend on their vote.

But while Mayor Gianni Alemanno later conceded that the demolition of the Ara Pacis Museum – the first building to be completed in Rome’s centre since Mussolini’s rule – was not a ‘top priority’, it is worth remembering that architecture, whether good or bad, is very much a priority for those that live and work in its midst – as Ken Livingstone may have discovered to his cost.

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