The first complete history of the Altar of Peace dedicated in ancient Rome to the emperor Augustus Caesar. The monument was restored under the auspices of Benito Mussolini in 1938 to commemorate the bi-millennial birth of Augustus. It is now being refurbished in the Ara Pacis museum in Rome by the American architect Richard Meier. The author disputes the date of this monument, as well as the integrity of the reconstruction, He brings an avalanche of evidence to bear on its reassignment as a commemorative monument assembled not under the reign of Augustus but rather under that of his successor, the emperor Tiberius. The author also offers new interpretation of the iconography of the many relief sculptures that adorn the monument.

"A sequel and companion to Richard Meier, architect (Rizzoli, 1984), this substantial new volume resumes the documentation of the numerous and varied works created since 1984 by one of America's most important architects and a winner of the Pritzker Prize for Architecture. Meire's crisp, dynamic, and elegant designs stand forth in all their purity in this illustrated volume designed by Massimo Vegnelli. Included are his Museum for the Decorative Arts and the Museum of Ethnology, both in Frankfort: the Getty Center, Los Angeles; The Hauge City Hall and Central Library; the Canal+ Headquarters, Paris; and several private houses. Twenty-eight projects in all are presented, as well as a chapter devoted to Meier's object designs."--Back flap of cover.

Rome is one of the world's greatest archaeological sites, preserving many major monuments of the classical past. It is also a city with an important post-Roman history and home to both the papacy and the modern Italian state. Archaeologists have studied the ruins, and popes and politicians have used them for propaganda programs. Developers and preservationists have fought over what should and should not be preserved. This book tells the story of those complex, interacting developments over the past three centuries, from the days of the Grand Tour through the arrival of the fascists, which saw more destruction but also an unprecedented use of the remains for political propaganda. In post-war Rome, urban development predominated over archaeological preservation and much was lost. However, starting in the 1970s, preservationists have fought back, saving much and making the city into Europe's most important case study in historical preservation and historical loss.

These essays are case-studies, the cases unraveling our cultural roots, memory itself. If a museum is the subject, then for instance the way the museum changes face, function, its manner of speech; how, a repository of collections and the cultural memory of humankind itself turns into one of the objects, memories, a custodian and exponent of its own history, or the opposite: how it connects with its modernized environs and changing audience: us. How has, or might the sanctum be transformed into a public venue, go from an inward looking, reverential enclosure to a space full of life. In other studies included here the author speaks of spatial and incarnate remembrance: the radical difference between a monument and a memorial. The duality of “always remembering” and “never forgetting”: a past depersonalized and dehistoricized as it was seized and processed. Of the layers of meaning attached to concentration camps, transmuting essence of artworks, and the difficult, the contradictory but inescapable processing of history and the past, of self-identical existence in history. So that we know we are alive. And how that is so.

Theorizing Archaeological Museum Studies works towards reconnecting archaeological practice, the theoretical richness of archaeology, and museum studies. The book therefore embraces both the practical aspects of archaeology and empirical studies in museums in order to rethink what happens when an artefact changes into an exhibit. This study is positioned at the intersection of both history and archaeological theory, and of the history of art and museum studies. The central focus of this book explores the relationship between museums and their dominant paradigms, on the one hand, and new approaches and theories in archaeology, on the other. It thus also illustrates the co-dependencies, relations and tensions that characterize the relationship between academia and museums. This book demonstrates how in becoming exhibits, artefacts have – and continue to – become reflections of the discipline’s prevailing paradigms while manifesting the dominant aims and methods of knowledge production pertaining at a given time and place, as well as the desired social interpretations and modes of presenting the past. Theorizing Archaeological Museum Studies offers important insights for academics and students (archaeology, heritage studies, museum studies) as well as for practitioners (museum employees, heritage practitioners). The book is also intended for scholars from across the humanities interested in museum studies, heritage studies, curatorial studies, cultural studies, cultural geography, material culture, history of archaeology, archaeological theory, and the anthropology of things.