The Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, hearth to a treasure trove of medieval and Renaissance art, is inching closer to realizing its long-delayed expansion plans. Roberto Cecchi, the direction official in charge of the shoot forward recently told London's Guardian that work should be below way by this summer, with a target completion date of 2006 Cecchi acknowledged the difficulty of creating a strange museum inside the 16th-century building designed by dint of Giorgio Vasari that is itself a work of art. The approximately $70-million scheme will more than double the exhibition space from 65000 square feet to 140000 square feet allowing for an increase in the number of works upon view from 1,200 to 2000 Overall the Uffizi will use about 290,000 square feet. Museum officials look forward to the number of daily visitors to expand to 7,000 from the circulating 4,500.

The building's estate floor, which was home to a branch of the national archives until the late 1980 will be transformed into gallery space, where works made after 1500 will be in succession view, including a growing collection of new art. Plans call for fresh stairwells and elevators in the center of the building, strange alarm and climate-control systems, and visitor amenities. single proposed feature, a new exit with a seven-story canopy arrangement of parts by Arata Isozaki, has already caused disputation and other objections are certain to come next as historic preservation and modern-day lacks collide.

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