Tate Modern is a contemporary art gallery located in London. It is the national UK gallery of international contemporary art and is part of the Tate group (together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives and Tate Online). It is based at the former Bankside Power Station in the Bankside area of Southwark. The Tate holds a national collection of British art from 1900 to the present day and international contemporary art. The Tate Modern is one of the largest contemporary art museums in the world. Like other national galleries and museums in the UK, there is no admission fee for access to the collection displays, which occupy most of the gallery space, while tickets must be purchased for major temporary exhibitions.
The Tate Modern is located in the former Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, architect of Battersea Power Station, and built in two phases between 1947 and 1963. It is directly across the river from St. Paul’s Cathedral. The power plant closed in 1981.
Prior to redevelopment, the power station was a 200 m (660 ft) long, steel framed, brick clad building with a substantial central chimney standing 99 m (325 ft). The structure was conventionally divided into three main directions each east to west – the huge main turbine hall in the center, with the boiler room to the north and the switch house to the south.
For years after Bankside Power Station closed, it was in danger of being demolished by developers. Many people advocated for the building to be preserved and put forward suggestions for possible new uses. An application to list the building was denied. In April 1994 the Tate Gallery announced that Bankside would be home to the new Tate Modern. In July of that year, an international competition was launched to select an architect for the new gallery. Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meron of Herzog & de Meron were announced as the winning architects in January 1995 the conversion to the Tate Modern £134000000 began in June 1995 and was completed in January 2000.
The most obvious exterior change was the extension of the glass two floors to one half of the roof. Much of the original internal structure remained, including the cavernous main turbine hall, which retained the overhead crane. The electrical substation, occupying the house switch in the southern third of the building, remained in place and is owned by French energy company EDF Energy, while the Tate took on the north boiler room for the main exhibition spaces of the Tate Modern in.
Tate Modern got 5.25 million visitors in its first year. Last year, the three existing Tate galleries got 2.5 million visitors combined.
The Tate Modern has attracted more visitors than originally expected and plans to expand this has been in preparation since 2004 these plans have focused on the south west of the building with the aim of providing 5,000m2 of new display space, almost double the amount of display space,
The collections at the Tate Modern consist of works of international modern and contemporary art from 1900 to the present day.
Levels 2, 3 and 4 contain gallery space. Each of these floors is divided into large east and west wings, with at least 11 rooms in each. The space between these wings is also used for smaller galleries on levels 2 and 4. The boiler room shows art from 1900 to the present day.
The Commuter House has eleven floors, numbered from 0 to 10. Levels 0, 2, 3 and 4 contain gallery space. Level 0 consists of tanks, spaces converted from the original oil fuel tanks of the power plant, while all other levels are located in the tower expansion building built above them. The Commuter House shows art from 1960 to the present day.
The turbine hall is one large space running the entire length of the building between the boiler room and the switch house. At six stories high it represents the full height of the original power plant building. It is cut by bridges between the boiler room and the switch house on levels 1 and 4, but the space is otherwise indivisible. The west end consists of a gentle ramp down from the entrance and provides access to both sides on Level 0. The east end provides a very large space that can be used to display exceptionally large works of art because of its unusual height.
Exhibitions:
The main displays of the collection consist of 8 areas with the name of the theme or object. In each area there are several rooms that change periodically showing different works in accordance to the general theme or subject. The themes change less frequently. There is no charge reception in these areas.