It is sometimes called "French Rome" because of the quantity and quality of the monuments of antiquity preserved there. Therefore, the museum dedicated to her is an extremely important project for the city. Elisabeth de Portzamparc won the right to design it through an international competition in 2011–2012, where her rivals were Richard Mayer and Rudy Ricciotti.
The location for the museum was chosen in accordance with its status: next to the Roman amphitheater, which once held 25,000 spectators, on the border of the old and new cities. The obvious starting point for the architect was the dialogue between the ancient arena and its own building. She built it in contrast: if the ancient circus is stone, rounded, with clear arches of the facade, then the museum of Roman civilization is rectangular in plan, with a fabric-like flowing glass shell, which Portzamparc compares to a toga.
Another source of inspiration is mosaics, an important art form for Rome, which also resembles the facade of the museum. The outer walls of the building consist of an inner layer of foam concrete, then metal panels, and on the outside, 6708 glass strips with a total area of 2500 m2, mounted on a stainless steel frame. Each strip consists of seven screen-printed square modules. This solution made it possible to dispense with the expensive and time-consuming curved glass technology.
The museum will open to the public only in June 2018 (the exposition was also designed by Elisabeth de Portzamparc), but already now you can appreciate its upper terrace, from where you can admire the arena and the city beyond. In addition, the building will become part of the “city promenade” with new aisles and perspectives.
The building itself received a free plan with thin supports, among the "green" components of the project - a heat pump.
