Culture

London's Tate Modern Gallery Approved for $391 Million Expansion

by Jarrett Martineau | April 2, 2009 at 01:23 pm

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London's infamous and excellent Tate Modern contemporary art gallery has been approved "for an extension designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron" that is expected to cost $391.5 million.

The proposed expansion will include the construction of an "origami-shaped extension" that is set to be completed in 2012.

Curiously, the Tate building extension will be built on top of "three oil tanks" strategically "hidden under the building" that are to be used as performance spaces and offices.

As a performance venue these could definitely work, but who would want their office to be in the basement of the Tate — inside a converted oil tank? Sounds rather claustrophobic.

London's Southwark district council approved plans Wednesday for an expansion of the contemporary art museum, opened in 2000 in the disused Bankside power station.

Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, who did the original conversion of the power station, plan a brick and glass polygon extending out from the original brick building.

The origami-shaped extension will rest on three oil tanks hidden under the building, which will be converted for use as performance space, galleries and offices.

The Tate is expanding due to high demand. The current facilites were designed to accommodate 1.8 million visitors per year, however, as many as 4.6 million a year have visited the gallery.

The redesign will add 11 floors of galleries, with a 150-seat restaurant on the 10th floor and a public viewing gallery on the 11th, as well as ramps leading down to the unusual exhibit spaces inside the former oil tanks.

For more information and photos of the planned extension visit: Transforming Tate Modern

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Jordan Yerman

at 13:26 on April 2nd, 2009

The Tate Modern is just awesome... I remember seeing it for the first time, walking into that giant repurposed factory, to be greeted by a giant metal spider.