The famous American architect Richard Meier has denounced as incredible plans by Rome’s new right-wing mayor to dismantle a state-of-the-art museum designed by Mr Meier that opened just two years ago.

The white marble, glass and steel structure housing the Ara Pacis, an ancient Roman altar with a sculptured frieze on the banks of the Tiber, is regarded by some architectural experts as a masterpiece. Others, however, find it hideous, with some critics dismissing it as being “like a suburban swimming pool or a giant petrol station”. Silvio Berlusconi, whose centre-Right alliance won a sweeping victory in national elections last month, once described it as monstrous.

Gianni Alemanno, a member of the “post-Fascist” Alleanza Nazionale who overturned decades of centre-Left rule in a run-off election on Sunday and Monday, said bluntly that “Meier’s building is a construction to be scrapped”. He added that this was not his” top priority”, leaving the timing of the demolition unclear.

He said the building, sited next to the ruins of the mausoleum of the Emperor Augustus, was “invasive”, a “disfigurement in the heart of Rome” and “an act of intellectual arrogance against the citizens of Rome”. The Ara Pacis, or Altar of Peace, was commissioned by Augustus in 13AD to commemorate his military conquests of Gaul and Spain and the ensuing period of peace, and was previously protected by a Fascist-era structure.

The proposal to knock down the Meier building reflects the Italian Right’s nationalist preference for Italian rather than foreign cultural influences, from architecture to cinema. Mr Alemanno, who has moved fast since his victory to reverse centre-Left policies, dismayed Rome’s glitterati this week by indicating that Hollywood film stars were not as welcome as Italians on the red carpet at Rome’s Film Festival, founded two years ago by Walter Veltroni, now leader of the centre-Left Democratic Party, to rival the Venice Film festival.

“I think we need to promote Italian films rather than Hollywood stars,” he said. The new festival head, the Italian director Pasquale Squitieri, who is married to Claudia Cardinale, said: ”Italian cinema barely exists anymore. So what exactly are we celebrating? Nicole Kidman and Leonardo DiCaprio? The Rome festival has no sense because the best of Italian cinema isn’t even invited”.

Mr Alemanno indicated that the Meier structure would be dismantled and re-erected in the suburbs. He said he was also looking at other constructions carried out in the historic centre under his centre-Left predecessors, Mr Veltroni and Francsco Rutelli.

The Ara Pacis building was commissioned by Mr Rutelli - later Minister of Culture - who also commissioned the award-winning Rome Music Auditorium designed by Renzo Piano which opened in 2002 and is the venue for the Film Festival.

Mr Meier, whose ultra-modern Jubilee Church in a Rome suburb has been widely praised, said he could not believe Mr Alemanno would knock his Ara Pacis building down. “I am told it is the third most visited building in Rome after St Peter’s and the Colosseum” he said.

He said he would travel to Rome from New York to confront Mr Alemanno. “There are some things you have to discuss in person, not on the telephone” he told La Repubblica. He said he would ask Mr Alemanno “what the problem is, what he thinks is wrong.

Maybe we can find a solution together”.

Vittorio Sgarbi, an art critic and former deputy Culture Minister, recently set fire to a model of the Ara Pacis building, declaring it to be “an indecent cesspit by a useless architect”.

Mr Alemanno also promised to swiftly carry out his campaign pledge to tackle illegal immigration and crime in the capital. ”I want a serious plan for city safety so there is a real turnaround,” he said, adding that he would ”rearm, retrain and modernise” the city's police force and put more officers on the beat.

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