Italy’s cultural minister will attend celebration once ‘metal monster’ beside famous Uffizi Galleries is removed
A giant crane that has blighted the skyline of Florence for almost 20 years is to finally be removed.
The controversial structure, described as “a metal monster”, has stood in the centre of the Tuscan capital since 2006, when it was installed in a square opposite the Uffizi Galleries – famous for sublime artworks of the Italian renaissance – and tasked with doing the heavy lifting of materials during the initial phase of the museum’s ongoing expansion.
At more than 60 metres tall and visible from miles away, the crane was used less and less as the construction works dragged on, but there it remained despite numerous attempts to have it removed over its incongruity with the Florence landscape.
Over time, the crane not only became a target of mockery, with an Instagram account set up for the purpose, but also the ultimate symbol of Italy’s notoriously sluggish bureaucracy.
