Ex Seccatoi
del Tabacco

The Ex Seccatoi del Tabacco are located on the immediate outskirts of Città di Castello. It is an imposing piece of architecture built in the immediate postwar period for the drying of tropical tobacco. In 1966, no longer used for agricultural purposes, it had the noble task of housing the volumes of the Biblioteca Nazionale and the Tribunale di Firenze affected by the 1966 flood that were destined for restoration.

The industrial complex consisted of eleven warehouses. Burri singled out one which, given the monumental dimensions his works were assuming in the late 1970s, he requested and succeeded in obtaining to use as a studio. With foresight, he felt that the entire structure could become a suitable “container” for his latest creations. He proceeded with the purchase, and thus in the summer of 1990 inaugurated the second headquarters of the Fondazione Burri.

The restoration was conducted, again under Burri’s guidance, by architects Alberto Bacchi and Tiziano Sarteanesi, respecting the buildings’ primal function, creating the development of plasterboard exhibition walls along the entire perimeter of each room to permanently house the major pictorial cycles created by Burri between 1974 and 1993. The 128 works on display also include four large sculptures, one placed inside, the other three placed on the garden in front of the museum building. The common denominator of the paintings on display is cellotex, a thermo-insulating and sound-absorbing wooden mixture, which the Master used from the beginning of his productive activity as a support and which in the 1970s he showed on the surface, intervening with the burin, to engrave it, scratch it, or lift its outermost film, at other times painting it. The works are collected in cycles, so named because they can only be understood in their entirety.

Since 2015, the extensive work of redevelopment, restoration
and implementation of the Ex-Seccatoi buildings has been undertaken. The first work involved the construction of the basement, characterized by the adoption of one of the most advanced air conditioning and lighting systems, now housing the entire corpus of the Graphic Works, and a large document section. Later, the section devoted to temporary exhibitions was also opened to the public.

In 2022, the last intervention at the Ex Seccatoi, conducted under the direction of architect Tiziano Sarteanesi, involved the completion of the restoration of the mezzanine floor and the upgrading of the facilities to international museum standards

This venue has hosted conferences on modern and contemporary art, study days on the restoration of contemporary art, graphic artwork, photography, refresher conferences in collaboration with influential parallel national and international institutions, ballets and concerts.