More than 180 years after his death, the independence hero Simón Bolívar will be given an ostentatious and controversial new resting place in Venezuela thanks to his most famous modern-day follower, Hugo Chávez.

The Venezuelan president has commissioned a £90m, white-tiled and domed mausoleum in Caracas to pay homage to his political inspiration, the nation's founding father.

But as Venezuelans await the twice-delayed inauguration, now scheduled for 17 December, many see the structure more as an emblem of their president's highly personalised style of leadership.

From the striking design and secretive planning to the separation of Bolívar's corpse from those of his revolutionary comrades, the 54m-high structure does not just dominate the skyline but also the debate about the best way to respect Latin America's most celebrated revolutionary.

Farruco Sesto, the minister of state responsible for the transformation of greater Caracas, said the idea of the mausoleum came about two years ago when Bolívar's bones were disinterred to test Chávez's personal theory that the Liberator – as he is known – was poisoned by political enemies.

A 19th-century portrait of Bolívar

Though the results of the autopsy never proved this suspicion, Sesto said the exhumation was so awe-inspiring that they decided Bolívar needed a resting place to match his glory.

"We were greatly moved by the experience of exhuming the remains, and we needed to feel that the Liberator had a dignified home.

"We know that his remains lay there, but that the Liberator walks among us in the streets accompanying this revolutionary process," Sesto said in a televised address.

Sesto, who headed the team of architects who designed and oversaw the construction, called the monument a sacred space defined by modern geometry.

But street-level descriptions range from the sublime to the utterly absurd. Some admirers liken the building – a white ascending curve flanked by a towering metal structure – to the snowy Andean peaks where Bolívar waged war against Spanish dominion. Critics and comics have compared it to a giant meringue or a skateboarding ramp.

"It is an architectural excess that completely ignores its surroundings and violates all the canons for intervening historical patrimony," said Graziano Gasparini, the country's leading authority on colonial architecture.

The mausoleum stands in the centre of old Caracas. It is flanked by an 18th-century military fortress and the National Pantheon, an unassuming neo-gothic church where Bolívar was previously buried alongside other independence heroes and illustrious Venezuelans.

It is the secrecy under which the monument was conceived and commissioned that Gasparini criticised most. "If they had called a contest among architects of the five countries Bolívar liberated it would have given the project greater relevance," he said. "Instead you have a building that imposes itself over the neighbouring structures and a government that decides everything behind closed doors. The whole thing isn't very democratic."

Since coming to power in 1998 Chávez has frequently cited Bolívar as the source of inspiration for his personal brand of Bolivarian socialism. From renaming the country – now the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela – to regional trade agreements such as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas, which aims to resurrect Bolívar's dream of a united region, Chávez has found numerous uses of his historical symbolism.

Most recently, the government unveiled what it said was a reconstruction of Bolívar's face, which now stares down from billboards and murals across the country.

Historian Inés Quintero said this constant rehashing of history for political purposes was nothing new, but in the case of the mausoleum it contradicted Chávez's revolutionary rhetoric: "When you take Bolívar out of the National Pantheon and place him alone in a mausoleum, the other men buried there become a preamble to the sole hero."

She said this undermined a more revolutionary approach to history, in which social movements rather than individuals are the real agents of change.

Others see the mausoleum as the latest attempt by Chávez to link his name to that of the national hero. "It is an ugly monstrosity, a waste of money, and a monument to Chávez, not to Bolívar, who needs no further glory," said Bolívar's British biographer, John Lynch.

Until the monument is inaugurated, most Venezuelans can only watch, wait and speculate about its relevance to them. "A construction worker inside told me it was beautiful; that they used the most expensive black marble for the floor and that Bolívar lies inside a crystal bubble for all to see," said Alfredo Camacho, 24, who makes a living selling coconuts from his house.

"The engineers told us this whole area was going to be renewed, but for now all we've got is a fresh coat of paint."