{"id":100401,"date":"2025-08-29T08:24:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/100401\/"},"modified":"2025-08-29T08:24:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-29T08:24:14","slug":"florence-skyline-darkened-by-luxury-flats-dubbed-the-black-cube","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/100401\/","title":{"rendered":"Florence skyline darkened by luxury flats dubbed the \u2018black cube\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

A block of luxury flats dubbed the \u201cblack cube\u201d that darkens the Florence skyline is under attack by critics who claim it could cost the Renaissance city its Unesco status.<\/p>\n

Unveiled this month, the angular black and white building rises clear of its neighbours and adds a modern twist to a city famous for Brunelleschi\u2019s cathedral dome, Giotto\u2019s bell tower and the 14th-century Palazzo Vecchio.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is totally ugly, totally out of context with Florence\u2019s cityscape and may break rules on height,\u201d said Eike Schmidt, an opposition councillor and former head of Florence\u2019s Uffizi Gallery<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Construction<\/p>\n

Officials insisted all steps of the planning process were carried out correctly<\/p>\n

VITTORIO GRASSI<\/p>\n

Built on the site of a demolished postwar theatre on Corso Italia, the block is surrounded by Renaissance and baroque villas as well as 19th-century buildings that follow the style of the villas.<\/p>\n

Instead of fitting in, the building\u2019s use of dark and white colours was a \u201cslap\u201d to a city built with softer-coloured stone, said Sergio Givone, a former culture chief in Florence.<\/p>\n

La Nazione, a local newspaper, found that more than 80 per cent of its readers opposed the building.<\/p>\n

Magistrates on Wednesday opened an investigation to discover if heritage rules had been broken during construction and Schmidt said he would be filing a complaint to Unesco, which granted the centre of Florence world heritage status in 1982.<\/p>\n

\"Panoramic<\/p>\n

Florence spans the Arno river, including the Ponte Vecchio bridge<\/p>\n

ALAMY<\/p>\n

He pointed out how Dresden lost its status in 2009 when it built a four-lane bridge over the Elbe near the city\u2019s historic centre and how Liverpool was stripped of its Unesco ranking in 2021 due to development around its historic waterfront.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want Florence to lose its status, but maybe Unesco can put pressure on the city to change the building materials and lower the height of the block,\u201d said Schmidt, who ran for mayor of Florence last year<\/a> but lost.<\/p>\n

Apart from serving as an opposition councillor, Schmidt is director of the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples<\/a>. \u201cIt is clear that plans for the building changed over time and things got tangled,\u201d he said. \u201cSomeone gave permission for the building to be built higher than usually allowed, and higher than the theatre it replaced. The question is: who is responsible for this?\u201d<\/p>\n

A city official said all stages in the planning procedure had been carried out correctly. Asked for her opinion on the building, the city\u2019s mayor, Sara Funaro, said: \u201cI don\u2019t think we should be talking about personal views but about the steps taken to build it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andrea Pessina, a former city heritage official who was in office when the project was approved, told La Nazione he had no memory of giving it the sign-off. \u201cI don\u2019t remember. I don\u2019t know. I signed thousands of documents during my mandate,\u201d he said. \u201cYou would have to ask the functionary who followed that application but years have passed and I don\u2019t recall who it was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Tuscany by boat: Pisa to reopen River Arno stretch to ocean<\/a><\/p>\n

Antonio Bugatti, the deputy head of Florence\u2019s guild of architects, said Pessina\u2019s apparent amnesia \u201cgives me goosebumps\u201d.<\/p>\n

The architect first hired to design the block has claimed it was originally to be built using beige stone before it was handed over to a different firm, the Milan-based studio Vittorio Grassi Architects.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we built it,\u201d a person answering the phone at Vittorio Grassi told The Times on Wednesday. \u201cNo, we are not doing interviews about it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A block of luxury flats dubbed the \u201cblack cube\u201d that darkens the Florence skyline is under attack by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100402,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-100401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}