Tate Modern London Architect, South Bank Building Images, Swiss Design, Date, Pictures, Location

Tate Modern Art Gallery

Art Gallery Building in London redevelopment design by Herzog and de Meuron Architects

post updated 8 September 2021 ; 3 Jul 2014

Date of renewal: 1994

Design: Herzog and de Meuron, Architects, Swizterland

Tate Modern London photos from 29 Apr 2013:

Tate Modern Building, London

photos © Adrian Welch

Address: Tate Modern, Sumner Street, Bankside, London SE1 9TG

Contact: 020 78878752

photo © Nick Weall

Art Gallery Redevelopment Design: Herzog & de Meuron Architects
Original power station building: Giles Gilbert Scott, Architect
Location: South Bank, across Thames from St Paul’s Cathedral, Southwark
Lead Architects: Pierre de Meuron, Jacques Herzog

Aerial photograph ; Interior of Turbine Hall:

photo © webbaviation ; photograph : Jason Baxter

Tate Modern Extension : planning permission received Mar 2007
Transforming Tate Modern. Exterior views from the south

images © Hayes Davidson and Herzog & de Meuron

Tate Modern, London, England – former Bankside Power Station building: architecture competition 1994

photos © Adrian Welch, Jun 2007

Horizontal ‘light beam’ along the top of the building forms a counterpoint to the verticality of the massive brick tower.

photos © Nick Weall

This central tower was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott to echo the form of St. Paul’s Cathedral dome across the Thames.

pictures © Adrian Welch, Jun 2007

Key space: The Turbine Hall is both the circulation space and home to a programme of installations.

Tate Modern architect : Herzog & de Meuron Architects

The galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in 1981. In 1992 The Tate Gallery at the British National Art Museum proposed an architecture competition to build a new building for modern art.

The purpose for the new building would help with the ever-expanding collection on modern and contemporary art. In 1995 it was announced that Herzog & de Meuron had won the competition with their simple design.

The architects decided to reinvent the current building instead of demolishing it. This art gallery building is an example of adaptive reuse, the process of finding new life in old buildings.

The building itself still resembles the 20th century factory in style from the outside and that is reflected on the inside by the taupe walls, steel girders and concrete floors. The façade of the building is made out of 4.2 million bricks that are separated by groups of thin vertical windows that help create a dramatic light inside. The history of the site as well as information about the conversion was the basis for a 2008 documentary ‘Architects Herzog and de Meuron: Alchemy of Building & Tate Modern’.
Source: wikipedia

photographs © Adrian Welch, Jun 2007