It may have shaped the style of buildings from the White House to the Panthéon in Paris, but Italian architecture is now under threat from an "invasion of foreigners", according to a group of the country's leading designers. In an open letter to the Italian government, 35 of Italy's architects have called for a halt to the museums, galleries and other public buildings being designed by international superstars such as Zaha Hadid, Lord Foster and Richard Meier. The architects' revolt emerged yesterday in an open letter to the prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and the president, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, published in the newspaper Corriere della Sera, complaining that many contracts are awarded at the expense of home-grown talent. The writers warn of the "architectural mongrelisation" of Italy, and say Italian architects are "an invaluable cultural resource that cannot continue to be thwarted and ignored". Their protests are supported by the architectural association Direzione Generale per L'Architettura e L'Arte Contemporanea in Rome, whose director, Pio Baldi, says Italian architects are being usurped in their own country. "It appears that the use of foreign architects has become a fashion, but they are not always the right choice for the right project," he said. "Architects like Foster can make skyscrapers in London, but he is not suited to making them in Siena. Italian architects are more capable of marrying the traditional with the modern in an Italian context." Lord Foster is working on a masterplan for a new community of 9,000 residents south-east of Milan. He has also designed a new train station in Florence. The Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid is constructing a Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, and the Chinese architect IM Pei is designing a regional authority building in Milan. The Japanese architect Arata Isozaki is working on projects in Milan and Florence. This month the American architect Richard Meier will unveil the first modern building to be erected in Rome's historic centre in decades. The minimalist-design of the Ara Pacis museum, built to contain the Altar of Peace constructed by Augustus in the 1st century BC, has been plagued by controversy since building work began five years ago.