Controversial building work on Florence's famed Uffizi Gallery got under way this week following years of polemics. A central section of the gallery has been curtained off as workmen began erecting scaffolding and a crane but officials highlighted that access to the museum's renowned artworks would not be affected.
The aim is to keep interference from the works to a minimum, with workmen, equipment and the crane shielded from view behind a screen.
Ideas to expand the gallery, which houses one of the greatest art collections in the world, were first discussed in the 1960s but a series of different plans have run aground amid widespread opposition.
The current plan has also been the subject of controversy, with the installation of two stairwells and lifts, and the design for a new seven-storey loggia drawing particularly fierce fire.
The enlargement plan will expand the building's 6,000 square metres of display space to 12,000, allowing it to bring out hundreds of works that are now kept in storage because of the lack of space.
There will be room to show more than 2,000 art works compared to 1,200 at present.
The Uffizi will also be able to double the number of visitors admitted daily, from 4,000 to 8,000. The work will be carried out in three phases.
The first stage, which started on Thursday, will last around four and a half years.
This will see the first floor converted into an exhibition space, the ground floor being turned over to staff offices and a photo archive, and the construction of one of two new stairwells. Workmen will also renovate all the gallery's electrical and plumbing systems, carry out roof repairs and clean up the facade. The most controversial addition to the building, the loggia designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, will follow in a second phase, which is expected to last around two years.
Plans have not yet been finalized for the final stage, although a tentative completion date has been fixed for 2013.
As late as November, it looked as though the loggia might not be built, despite extensive changes by Isozaki to his original plans, which a past culture undersecretary described as "anal" and a "sardine can".
But Florentine officials said they were satisfied with further alterations, and said the loggia would be realized "provided it blends harmoniously" with its surroundings.
However, the project continued to stir debate even as the first batch of scaffolding was being erected, with a former director of the museum expressing strong doubts.
"I would have liked a softer approach towards this monument," said Anna Maria Petrioli Tofani, who retired from her post two years ago.
"It seems to me that some of the interventions are disrupting the historic context. They are varying the aspect of the building and creating discrepancies and a lack of homogeneity with the rest". She particularly singled out the two new stairwells, one in the western wing of the museum, the other in the east, which in her opinion "change the internal aspect of the building".
The Uffizi, an unusual U-shaped building, was begun in 1560 by the artist and art critic Giorgio Vasari and completed according to his design by the architects Alfonso Parigi the Elder and Bernardo Buontalenti.
The gallery was commissioned by duke of Florence and grand duke of Tuscany Cosimo I to serve as government offices, or 'uffici' in Italian, and hence Uffizi.
Resting on unstable sandy ground, it is a feat of engineering skill.
The origins of the Uffizi collection date back to Cosimo I. Members of the Medici dynasty continued to add to the collection over the years, with the last of the Medici, Anna Maria Lodovica, settling her inheritance on the people of Florence in 1737.
The gallery boasts a host of Renaissance masterpieces including Botticelli's famous Primavera (Spring) and The Birth of Venus.
