Black-and-White Tower near the Lungarno Sparks Debate in Florence

A striking black-and-white tower has risen on Corso Italia, between Lungarno Vespucci and Porta al Prato, on the site once occupied by Florence’s historic Teatro Comunale, the heart of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

The project is signed by Hines, an international real estate giant. Approved by the City of Florence, the Region of Tuscany and the Soprintendenza, it was originally intended to include private residences. With subsequent changes, the area will instead host an ultra-luxury hotel and tourist apartments.

The debate, raised by the newspaper La Nazione, currently focuses not on the project’s legal legitimacy but on its cultural and aesthetic impact. The new tower, visible from the Arno embankments, stands in sharp contrast with the surrounding 19th- and early 20th-century buildings, disrupting the visual balance of an area under landscape protection since 1953.

At the same time, Florence is undergoing a broader transformation. Several prominent properties have already been or are about to be converted into luxury hotels and resorts, always with the approval of the city administration currently led by mayor Sara Funaro: the former Fiat branch on Viale Belfiore, Villa San Chiara, the Collegio alla Querce, the Manifattura Tabacchi, Villa Demidoff, and soon the former military hospital in Via San Gallo and the School of Health in Costa San Giorgio.

The unveiling of the new black-and-white tower on the site of the former Teatro Comunale has quickly turned into a political issue. Supporters point to the fact that the project complies with urban and landscape regulations. Critics, however, question the architectural and cultural impact of a design so markedly different from its setting.

Opposition leader Eike Schmidt, former director of the Uffizi and now at the helm of the Capodimonte museum in Naples, announced that his civic list is considering submitting a complaint to UNESCO in Paris. Schmidt described the building as a “wound in the urban fabric of Florence” and accused the municipality of yielding too easily to private interests. He also warned that cities like Dresden lost their UNESCO World Heritage designation because of a single controversial construction project.

His remarks prompted sharp reactions across the political spectrum. The Democratic Party, which governs the city, stressed that the project was reviewed and approved multiple times by the Soprintendenza, the Region, and the municipal landscape commission, calling Schmidt’s intervention “instrumental and grotesque.” On the other side, opposition figures in Fratelli d’Italia and Forza Italia echoed Schmidt’s concerns, denouncing what they see as a disfigurement of Florence’s skyline and blaming both City Hall and the heritage authorities for authorizing the project.

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