A grander Uffizi - Artworld - Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy - Brief Article

The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, home to a treasure trove of medieval and Renaissance art, is inching closer to realizing its long-delayed expansion plans. Roberto Cecchi, the government official in charge of the project, recently told London's Guardian that work should be under way by this summer, with a target completion date of 2006. Cecchi acknowledged the difficulty of creating a new museum inside the 16th-century building designed by Giorgio Vasari that is itself a work of art. The approximately $70-million scheme will more than double the exhibition space from 65,000 square feet to 140,000 square feet, allowing for an increase in the number of works on view from 1,200 to 2,000. Overall the Uffizi will occupy about 290,000 square feet. Museum officials expect the number of daily visitors to grow to 7,000 from the current 4,500.

The building's ground floor, which was home to a branch of the national archives until the late 1980s, will be converted into gallery space, where works made after 1500 will be on view, including a growing collection of modern art. Plans call for new stairwells and elevators in the center of the building, new alarm and climate-control systems, and visitor amenities. One proposed feature, a new exit with a seven-story canopy structure by Arata Isozaki, has already caused controversy, and other objections are certain to follow as historic preservation and modern-day needs collide.

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