Uffizi Gallery monitoring for IAQ assessment

Abstract

In museums, poor indoor air quality combined with unsuitable thermal and hygrometric conditions can affect the visitors and staff wellbeing as well as cause the deterioration processes of the exhibit objects. In order to assess indoor air quality of the museum, a survey was carried out in some rooms of the Uffizi Gallery of Florence by the researchers of the Laboratory of Environmental Physics of the University of Florence. Indoor temperature, relative humidity, chemical and microbiological pollutants were sampled, and the results analyzed and discussed. To do that a general methodology of investigation and evaluation of the results was defined and applied to several rooms of the Gallery. The presence of critical pollutant concentration was underlined and proper investigations on the HVAC system were scheduled. In this paper the results regarding a representative room are shown and discussed.