FLORENCE—Italian culture minister Sandro Bondi has sharply criticized a planned loggia addition to Florence's Uffizi Gallery, ANSA Media Service reports. Designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, the loggia would be a steel, polycarbonate, and stone structure, which Bondi said would not "harmonize well" with its surroundings. "It would provoke a kind of Stendhal's syndrome in reverse," he said, referring to the psychosomatic dizziness, heart palpitations, and other symptoms that ensue when an individual is exposed to too much beautiful art.

Isozaki's designs for the new loggia were met with criticism when they were first released in 1998, particularly by the culture undersecretary at the time, Vittorio Sgarbi, who called the design "anal" and "a sardine can." The plans were reworked, and in 2006, Florence's city council approved the project.

The new loggia is part of a €60 million renovation and development project at the Uffizi that will more than double exhibition space to 12,000 square meters, allowing the gallery to show more than 2,000 artworks — as opposed to the present 1,200 — and double its number of daily visitors. Work on the expansion began in January 2007 and is tentatively set to be completed in 2013.

Bondi told Italian paper Il Giornale that he plans to discuss the loggia with the Florence city council. "How could it live alongside the adjacent loggias designed by Giorgi Vasari without shocking Florentines and visitors from all over the world?" he asked.