Rome’s Ara Pacis museum vandalized, colors of Italian flag painted on US-designed building

Rome’s Ara Pacis museum vandalized

ROME — The back wall of a controversial museum designed by U.S. architect Richard Meier was painted overnight with the red and green colors of the Italian flag.

Vandals used paint-filled balloons to splash red and green against the white wall of the Ara Pacis museum, which sits on a fascist-era piazza in central Rome, police said Monday. The vandals also left a porcelain toilet and two packs of toilet paper nearby.

The white, block-like structure has attracted controversy since the project was assigned to Meier in 1998 by the center-left municipal administration in power at the time. Critics contend the modern building clashes with Rome’s classical architecture.

The museum houses a carved sacrificial altar built in 9 B.C. to celebrate the peace that Rome’s first emperor, Augustus, brought to his people. It was broken up and lost for hundreds of years until pieces began resurfacing in the 16th century.

Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, who strove to connect fascism with the glories of the Roman Empire, ordered the altar fully excavated in the 1930s to commemorate the anniversary of Augustus’ birth.

Mussolini inaugurated a museum housing the tomb in 1938, placing it just behind Augustus’ mausoleum on a piazza that remains the only fascist-era construction in Rome’s historic center. That museum was torn down after it fell into decay, and was replaced with Meier’s building.

Amid continued criticism of the building, Rome’s current right-wing Mayor Gianni Alemanno said last year he may move the museum, but later backed off the threat.

Police said Monday they have not determined a motive and that no one has claimed responsibility.

By early Monday afternoon, public works officials were already repainting the green and red splashes of paint white again.