The Project For the same reasons, we cannot disregard the operations of rehabilitation and restoration carried out more recently, especially those related to the gallery and, lastly, the refurbishment of the rooms on the ground floor which provided a useful benchmark for the project.
Finally, we have sought not to alter the typological identity of the sixteenth-century layout, while at the same time valorising the successive periods through the conservation of the later decoration – at times by means of simple “covering” operations – maintaining the existing stratigraphy. This criterion cannot, however, be extended to the entire Uffizi building.
In the majority of cases, a non-destructive intervention of simple glazing is possible, in others it is necessary, and more correct, to restore the depth and brilliance to the original decoration by an authentic process of pictorial restoration; this is the approach we have adopted. By the same token, we have scheduled the complete rehabilitation of the sixteenth-century brickwork, using techniques of restoration, dismantling and reassembly which will be described in detail below. The recovered brickwork will be laid out to form the flooring of all the corridors on the first floor.
The executive project has associated with each of the identified categories the most suitable series of elementary restoration operations. These include consolidation, removal of the overlying colours, cleaning and pre-consolidation of the pictorial film, fixing of the decorations, final treatment with glazes of milk of lime and pictorial restoration.
Restoration Workshops of the Department of Advanced Technology
These occupy the two lower floors of the Magliabechiana building, connected internally by the service elevator and the new staircase. The workshops of the Department of Advanced Technology, currently housed in Palazzo dei Veliti, will be set up on the ground floor, coinciding with the basement of the Uffizi. This will make it possible to rationalise and facilitate the relations with the canvas and paper restoration workshops, which will also find a new home on these floors.
The ground floor is also where the so-called “dirty” restoration operations will take place – carpentry, painting, relining, the packing and unpacking of works in transit – and it will house the wood store and the rooms appointed for x-ray investigations and photos. There will also be areas for the staff changing rooms and bathrooms.
The works of art will transit through a reserved and protected entrance connected with the courtyard of Palazzo dei Veliti. This will be constructed in the form of a vehicle ramp between the two existing external staircases for access to the first floor.
On this floor, to enhance the viability of the areas in terms of health and safety in the workplace, the floor will have to be lowered and new and larger windows installed.
The first floor, with its valuable architectural features (considerable internal height, cross-vaulted ceiling and natural lighting from the large windows in the facade), lends itself perfectly to the activities of canvas and paper restoration.
The project schedules the division of the space into two large rooms and several accessory areas, such as the armoured storeroom for the temporary storage of the works, as well as the staff bathrooms.
The structural intervention is aimed essentially at the consolidation of the existing structures and the reconstruction of a ceiling/arch which is in appalling static conditions.
All the rooms to be created on the two floors, divided by partitions built of traditional masonry, will have plastered walls and the planned flooring is of an industrial type in acid and solvent proof resin.
All the existing windows will be maintained and restored; repainting and the replacement of the glass is scheduled.
Staff changing rooms
These occupy the mezzanine floor between the ground and first floors and are organised in two separate groups for men and women, sized for 100 and 120 employees respectively, in compliance with the regulations in force.
At the end of each changing room are the bathroom areas, equipped with washbasins and showers.
At the point of access from the new service staircase located in Vicolo dell’Oro, a room will be appointed as the staff rest room, adjacent to the personnel office.
The median position of the changing-rooms means that they are within easy reach of the various work places, either via the staircases of the Magistratura, or via Vasari’s staircase. The construction of this series of bathrooms and changing rooms does not call for particular intervention; the operations of demolition involve the floors and a number of openings for the creation of new doors.
As already mentioned, one of the connections that can be utilised by the museum personnel is represented by the four staircases of the Magistrature; contemporary with Vasari’s building, these linked the public reception rooms on the ground floor with the area occupied by the clerks and the archives on the mezzanine and the first floor. The stairs start from the basement floor, with the two last staircases, towards the Arno, arriving at the first floor, while the first ends at the mezzanine and the second at the ground floor.The offices in Palazzo dei Veliti
The two upper floors of Palazzo dei Veliti have been organised to house offices, while the third, occupied up to now by the Carabinieri has also become available.
The project intervention also consists in the improvement of the systems of connection with the rest of the museum complex: it is scheduled to install a lift in the stairwell of the palazzo, utilising a metal framework covered in plates of bronze, and a new bridge in metal and glass connecting the top floor of the palazzo with the first floor of the Uffizi. As far as possible the areas will be freed of non load-bearing partitions so as to achieve a system of large rooms gravitating around a distributive central space, with an attic area above to house the air conditioning plant.
The areas have been treated with restraint and moderation, restricting the additions to a false ceiling containing the air-conditioning and lighting systems.
The reorganisation of the repositories
The Repositories for the works will remain in their current location on the mezzanine floors of the west wing, but will be removed from the rooms they occupied on the first floor, which are destined to the expansion of the Gallery’s display areas.
In the reorganisation of the repositories, priority intervention is aimed at the protection of the works of art from eventual fire risks originating from the adjacent areas not appointed as display areas which, like the repositories, are already equipped with the most efficacious fire-prevention systems. Thus, the executive project schedules the installation of fireproof false ceilings to protect the ceilings and the replacement of the fixtures overlooking internally the covered courtyard of the new staircase and the main room of the restaurant.
A section of the Repositories has been recently restored; the works scheduled are the installation of the air-conditioning, electricityand special systems, the restoration of the walls and ceilings and the original terracotta flooring. The rest of the flooring will be made using new terracotta of artisan production. In the areas to be restored, the system for the conservation of the works will be rationalised through the installation of a structural modular mesh enabling grid-type panels to be hung from the ceiling. This guarantees the maximum freedom in the positioning of the panels and hence in the variation of the capacity of the picture-hanging surface.The reorganisation of the Photographic Department
The rooms in the southern section of the archive destined to the dark rooms have been reorganised; the exposure room has been left at full height, while two split levels have been created in the rooms to the sides for the negatives archive. These raised levels and the steps for reaching them have been made in metal structural work, as a continuation of those just completed in the northern area of the department where, as well as the framework of metal girders, the flooring is composed of steel plates of a thickness of 12 mm. The walls and ceilings will be restored as will the fixtures; for the floors different materials will be used depending on the function of the areas: the floor of the section destined to consultation will be made of slabs offine-cut finish pietra serena sandstone, the exposure room and the dark rooms will have an industrial type flooring with a resin finish resistant to the substances used in photography, while the split-level section used as an archive will have a rubber floor.
The Display Areas
This operation has involved various parts of Vasari’s building and has addressed both the review of the existing display spaces and the organisation of new spaces in areas previously unused or differently utilised.
In tackling this issue, our principal reference was the museum design project made available by the management of the Uffizi, sharing and implementing the decisions made therein.
Each room is provided with an integrated system for the monitoring and control of the environmental and security conditions, composed of specialised devices housed in “technological columns” set at the entrance and exit of the room.
Working in complete respect of Vasari’s forms, the rooms have been equipped with simple and functional display structures which at once reflect the architectural language and guarantee the maximum display flexibility.
This equipment consists of the installation of a metal service bar around the perimeter of each room, containing the mobile systems for the hanging of the paintings, the brackets for the runners of the sliding curtains and the light fittings for the diffused lighting.
Only in the rooms now occupied by the paper restoration workshop, and destined to house the works of German painters of the 15th and 16th century and Foreign Schools of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, have we decided differently.
In these sections, less characteristically historic than the rest of Vasari’s complex, we have chosento refer to the twentieth-century intervention carried out in the rooms on the second floor of the Gallery, which exploit lighting from above in the form of skylights that distribute the light in a uniform manner, thus allowing a natural viewing of the works on display.
The only intervention of a structural kind in these areas will be the eventual consolidation of the wall structures, performed using non-invasive techniques for the protection of the precious plasterwork and the decorated surfaces.
All the plastered surfaces of the walls and vaulted ceilings will be subjected to a specific restoration treatment, differentiated on the basis of the results of the investigative campaigns.
In several of the first-floor rooms in the west wing the walls feature decorations of a certain prestige which, by agreement with the Commission, we have decided to preserve. On these walls we will proceed by applying a fabric covering to protect the decorative apparatus, which can then be uncovered again without any type of damage.
For these processes we shall utilise widely tested materials suitable for restoration; the covering will be performed using defibrated calico (habitually used for the detachment of frescoes) applied using water-based reversible resins.
In the same west wing, there are two rooms with ceilings painted in tempera attributed to Luigi Ademollo, one portraying Bacchanalian and floral decorations, and the other Biblical scenes from the life of Tobias. These pictorial decorations are in need of restoration, which will be performed using modern techniques and materials of tried and tested efficacy. In each room, irrespective of the conservative or restorative treatment adopted, the surfaces of the walls and ceilings (excluding those that are painted) will be subjected to a final lime treatment in order to render all the display areas homogeneous.
The windows will also be restored using appropriate materials and intervention techniques. More specifically, for those overlooking the square, the glass will be replaced and the wood and metal elements of the fixtures will be rehabilitated, after which they will be repainted in the dark brown colour that characterises them.
On the second floor of the present gallery, decisions relating to the new museum approach, and above all the need to enhance environmental comfort, demand a new layout for the Botticelli Room and the provision of the same with adequate systems.
In the remainder of the second floor solely operations for the adaptation of the systems and maintenance will be performed.
More specifically, it is planned to enhance the ventilation and air-conditioning systems in the first rooms of the eastern wing. Here the current false ceilings will be modified to enable the inlet of treated air.
Also scheduled is the improvement of the lighting system in the Tribuna through the use of optical fibres set up in the lantern of the domed ceiling.
The works displayed within will be visible only from the three entrances to this room, which will be off bounds for visitors.
This closure will entail the reorganisation of the museum itinerary in this stretch. For this purpose, it is planned to reopen the door between the Leonardo Room and the Miniatures Room. The remaining rooms of the oldest nucleus of the gallery will now be reached through a new entrance from the First Corridor, resembling those already in existence in terms of size and shape. In the rooms of the east wing, with the exception of the Lippi and Leonardo Rooms, and in all the monumental corridors, the artificial lighting system will be enhanced.
All the floors of the second floor will be polished and all the walls involved in the works repainted.
The ground floor rooms in the east wing, with entrance from the arcade, which are at present unused, will be appointed for the display of the tapestries, and those overlooking Vicolo dell’Oro as a repository for the same.
Subsequent to the original layout, a dividing partition was set up in one of the rooms which reduces the space and interrupts the complete reading of the ceiling, the continuity of which has been verified by the investigations performed.
The project schedules the demolition of this wall so that the original harmonious proportions of the room can be retrieved.
This operation, which is particularly delicate from a structural point of view, involves the reinforcement and support of the wall on the floor above using two lattice girders which, appropriately joined to the wall itself will offload the weight on the orthogonal walls.
This operation will be underscored by the appropriate installation of panelling in plasterboard of a distinctly modern register. This facing, which will extend from the floor as far as the springing of the vaulted coffered ceiling, will serve to conceal the new beams.
The restoration will be completed in the rooms of the west wing that stretch from Buontalenti’s staircase as far as the Lungarno. The new display spaces will house the Antiquarium, part of the statuary from the Loggia and works of Modern Sculpture.