Uffizi
Giorgio Vasari; Bernardo Buontalenti; Alfonso Parigi · Florence, Italy · 1581
The Uffizi began as a long office complex for the Florentine magistracies and later became one of the world's defining art museums. Giorgio Vasari arranged two narrow wings around a perspectival courtyard that opens toward the Arno, using repeated loggias, pietra serena frames and a continuous cornice to create an urban interior. A bridge at the river end completes the visual frame and connects to the Vasari Corridor. Buontalenti and later architects developed the upper-floor gallery and tribune for the Medici collections. The date records completion of the principal sixteenth-century complex; museum installations and circulation have continued to change within the durable linear structure.