The Ara Pacis

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The Ara Pacis Augustae (Latin, "Altar of Augustan Peace"; commonly shortened to Ara Pacis) is an altar dedicated to Pax, the Roman goddess of Peace. The monument was commissioned by the Roman Senate on July 4, 13 BCE to honor the return of Augustus to Rome after three years in Hispania and Gaul, and consecrated on January 30, 9 BCE.

Originally located on the northern outskirts of Rome, a Roman mile from the boundary of the pomerium on the west side of the Via Flaminia, it stood in the northeastern corner of the Campus Martius, the former flood plain of the Tiber River and gradually became buried under 4 metres (13 ft) of silt deposits. It was reassembled in its current location, now the Museum of the Ara Pacis, in 1938.

The altar reflects the Augustan vision of Roman civil religion. The lower register of its frieze depicts vegetation meant to communicate the abundance and prosperity of the Roman Peace, while the monument as a whole "serves a civic ritual function whilst simultaneously operating as propaganda for Augustus and his regime, easing notions of autocracy and dynastic succession that might otherwise be unpalatable to traditional Roman culture".

The monument consists of a traditional open-air altar at its center surrounded by precinct walls which are pierced on the eastern and western ends by openings. It is elaborately and finely sculpted entirely in Luna marble.

In 1938 the reconstructed Ara was placed near the Mausoleum of Augustus, and a big pavilion was built around it by architect Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo as part of Benito Mussolini's attempt to create an ancient Roman "theme park" to glorify Fascist Italy. Several dozens of the buildings surrounding the Mausoleum were leveled to free up space around the monument. This led to a great number of complaints from locals, starting a long series of arguments and criticisms of the Ara Pacis project.

The historic Fascist style building was pulled down in 2006, and replaced by a glass and steel structure in modern style.  This new structure is much bigger than the previous one and it is divided in multiple rooms and sections besides the main one containing the altar.

The building's construction caused new arguments and criticism, both from Rome inhabitants and foreign observers, probably due both to political memory tied to the pre-existing pavilion and to the visual impact of the new pavilion, which in the opinion of many is in stark contrast with surrounding historical buildings.

The New York Times called it "a contemporary expression of what can happen when an architect fetishises his own style out of a sense of self-aggrandisement. Absurdly overscale, it seems indifferent to the naked beauty of the dense and richly textured city around it."