Uffizi expansion goes ahead despite Florentine opposition

The plan to add a huge new modernist portico to Florence's Uffizi Gallery, the most controversial building project of recent times in Italy, is to go ahead.

After nine years of bitter argument and despite the rage of Florentines including the opera and film director Franco Zeffirelli, the dramatic and imposing new portico at the side of Italy's most famous art museum was given approval this week by the city's super-intendent of architectonic goods, Paola Grifoni.

Its designer is Arata Isozaki, the celebrated avant garde architect from Kyushu in Japan whose other works in Italy include the ice hockey stadium for Turin's 2006 Winter Olympics. In 1998 he won the competition to design the museum's new exit against top foreign practices, including Britain's Norman Foster and Hans Hollein of Austria.

His solution was simple, bold and arresting: a huge cantilevered canopy fanning out from the gallery, supported by slim rectangular pilasters. There was no attempt to integrate the new work with the Renaissance original: the contrast between old and modern was deliberately stark.

Supporters of the work hailed the Isozaki design as a masterpiece. "After decades of frustration and silence," wrote the architect Nicola Santini, "architecture has come back to talk to Florence again, with clear language and strong ideas." The last large modern building to be erected in Florence is the station, which dates from 1935.

But the reaction of conservatives was ferocious. Oriana Fallaci, the Florentine journalist and novelist, called the design "absolutely indecent and unheard of", and threatened to return to Florence from her home in New York "and tear it to pieces with my bare hands".

The fogeyish art critic Vittorio Sgarbi, appointed under-secretary in the Ministry of Culture under Silvio Berlusconi in 2001, launched a campaign to get "this horror" scrapped. He claimed that the new portico's foundations would threaten possible undiscovered archaeological treasures. "The other fundamental thing," he wrote, "is that there is an urbanistic law that defines Piazza Castellani and its surroundings as "Zone A", in other words as unalterable ... The cost [£4.7m] is absurd for a work without functional importance, and this architecture would change the face of Zone A which the law considers unalterable. Therefore it is an unacceptable violation."

Zeffirelli weighed in to the debate, describing the portico as "looking like a stool" and charging that Isozaki had been picked, thanks to the machinations of an unnamed Japanese in city hall, to encourage yet more Japanese tourists to visit. The project, he said, "puts together Japanese pride and the base commercial interests of Florence. But it betrays an ignorance both of Florence and of the Japanese. If there is one thing the Uffizi does not need more of, it is tourists. And the Japanese don't come here to snap Japanese things, but Florence."

But Mr Sgarbi was sacked from the Culture Ministry before he could kill the project, and with the appointment of Francesco Rutelli as Culture minister in Romano Prodi's government last year, its prospects revived.

"It's taken almost 10 years to get this far," Mr Isozaki said yesterday from his office in Tokyo. "We submitted the original drawings in 1997. With Sgarbi it was like fighting in the boxing ring, and even after he went there were many right-wing, chauvinistic cultural people who were opposed to it. But things changed after the appointment of Rutelli, who agreed to go ahead with it. That was at the end of last year, and many newspapers said we would start in the spring." The architect now expects building work to start in the autumn, and for the structure to be completion by 2011.

But the projects opponents will not give up without a fight. Mr Sgarbi described the go-ahead as "incomprehensible", adding: "This is a sign of profound incivility, of lack of respect for Florence, the monumental integrity of which is a value in itself... it is a wound and an abdication of care for the city." Mr Zeffirelli said: "I've been in touch with Sgarbi and many others. We will not stop our war against this monstrosity."

Cream of the collection

Bacchus, by Caravaggio

Less an awesome deity than a half-drunk adolescent in this early Caravaggio, pallid and woozy, his crown of vine leaves and grapes more comical than pastoral. The grapes in the fruit bowl in front of him are clearly going off: this is one of the first-ever realistic depictions of still life.

Primavera, by Botticelli

This huge work, throbbing with diaphanously clad goddesses, unites many of the classical indicators of spring and fertility, including Venus, Cupid,the Three Graces, Zephyrus and Flora.

The Birth of Venus, by Botticelli

Another large, boldly pagan work in which the goddess of love, having emerged from the deep aboard a shell, arrives on the shore, blown to safety by Zephyrus.

The Duke and Duchess of Urbino, by Piero della Francesca

The striking contrast between the hale and fleshy figure of Federico da Montefeltro and the ghostly pallor of his wife, Battista Sforza, may indicate the painting dates from after her death. Aso famous for the sliced off bridge of the Duke's nose and his hooded eyes.

The Annunciation, by Leonardo da Vinci

In the courtyard garden of a Florentine villa, the Archangel Gabriel tells Mary that she is to bear Christ. The lily in the angel's hand is a symbol both of Mary's virginity and the city of Florence. The angel's wings were supposedly drawn by Leonardo from a bird, then lengthened by a later hand.

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