To his admirers, architect Richard Meier has “the most consistent portfolio of any architect alive; to his detractors, the most repetitive. You can identify one of his buildings in an instant, yet they tend to go with everything. Currently, Meier finds himself at the centre of an almighty controversy. His new Ara Pacis Museum is the first significant structure to go up in Rome’s historic centre since Mussolini’s time, and as such it has attracted a great deal of attention, mostly negative.”