The ‘Ara Pacis’ in a New Modern Era

Conceived in 1996 and completed in 2006, the Ara Pacis Augustae Museum arises as a house for Caesar Augustus’ peace altar, located on the banks of the Tiber River just in front of Augustus’ own mausoleum. It emerged by virtue of the patronage of Rome’s City Council and the Superintendency of Rome’s Cultural Heritage in order to seek a renewed modern image of Rome (Strazzulla 2009, 3). Walter Veltron, the mayor in charge, entrusted the architect Richard Meier with the construction of this architectural landmark in the historical urban profile of Rome. It is considered the first modern building in the Centro Storico of the city since the 1930s, which besides being a public space that guards the emperor’s altar, exhibits the fragments of the altar that emerged from its constant construction and reconstruction throughout the history (Pérez 2015, 31). The project was an intervention of great impact and notable dimensions in a strategic point of the city. The contemporary monument appeared as an innovation that burst into the otherwise historic center of Rome, challenging the historicism protected in most of the buildings.

The museum consists of a longitudinal plan with a north-south main axis that alternates between interior and exterior spaces exposed to light. This sequence is subdivided into a fountain, staircases, and a plaza as the articulator of the two eighteenth-century churches that surround the museum with its main access. This access collects the public towards the main hall where the altar is, to later discover a series of spaces such as an…