Tate Modern London – Art Inside an Industrial Giant
Tate Modern London – Art Inside an Industrial Giant
.png)
Standing on the south bank of the River Thames, opposite St Paul’s Cathedral, Tate Modern is one of those London buildings that makes an impression before you even walk through the door.
It is huge, dark and unmistakably industrial. And that is because Tate Modern was never originally designed to be an art gallery.
The building began life as Bankside Power Station, a vast electricity-generating station designed by architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the man also associated with Battersea Power Station and the famous red telephone box.
Construction began after the Second World War, and the power station was built in stages, with its enormous central chimney rising almost 100 metres above the Thames.
For decades this was a working industrial building, producing electricity for London. By the early 1980s Bankside Power Station had closed, leaving behind an enormous brick structure in one of the most prominent positions in the capital.
It could easily have disappeared.
Instead, it was given a completely different future.
From Power Station to Tate Modern
During the 1990s the former power station was chosen as the home of Britain's new national gallery of international modern and contemporary art.
Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron were selected to transform the building, but importantly, they did not attempt to erase its industrial past.
Much of the character remained.
The brick exterior, towering chimney, steelwork and sheer scale of the former power station became part of the gallery itself.
Tate Modern finally opened to the public in May 2000.
Walking inside, the first thing that really demonstrates the size of the building is the Turbine Hall.
Once home to the machinery that helped generate London's electricity, it is now an extraordinary public space running through the heart of Tate Modern.
Photographs struggle to show just how big it actually feels.
People walking across the floor almost disappear against the scale of the architecture.
Over the years the Turbine Hall has also become an exhibition space in its own right, used for ambitious installations that would be almost impossible to display in a conventional gallery.
In 2016 Tate Modern expanded again with the opening of the building now known as the Blavatnik Building, also designed by Herzog & de Meuron.
The extension added another very different piece of architecture while retaining a connection with the industrial history of the site.
The Art
Of course, the building is only half the story.
Tate Modern holds one of the world's most important collections of modern and contemporary art, covering work from the early twentieth century through to the present day.
This is not a traditional gallery filled only with paintings hanging neatly in rows.
There are paintings, but there is also sculpture, photography, film, installations, performance and works that can sometimes be difficult to categorise at all.
That is part of the attraction.
The collection includes work associated with some of the biggest names in modern art, including Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Henri Matisse, Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol, alongside generations of artists from around the world.
Some works are instantly recognisable.
Others can leave you wondering exactly what you have just looked at.
And I think that is partly the point.
You do not necessarily have to like everything inside Tate Modern. Some pieces are beautiful, some are strange, and others can appear incredibly simple. Contemporary art has always divided opinion, and Tate Modern does not try to avoid that.
It puts the work in front of you and allows you to make up your own mind.
For me, that makes it far more interesting.
The Building Is Part of the Exhibition
What I particularly like about Tate Modern is the relationship between the art and the building.
There are moments when the former power station becomes as interesting as anything hanging on the walls.
Concrete, brick, steel, enormous windows, staircases and industrial spaces constantly remind you what this place once was.
Then you walk into another gallery and find yourself standing in front of a Picasso or a Rothko.
It should not really work.
But somehow it does.
The contrast between heavy industrial architecture and modern art has given Tate Modern an identity that would have been almost impossible to create with a purpose-built gallery.
Even outside, the building remains dominant.
The chimney still forms part of London's skyline, while directly across the Thames sits St Paul's Cathedral, connected to the area by the Millennium Bridge.
Old London, industrial London and modern London all seem to meet here.
More Than an Art Gallery
Tate Modern is now one of London's major cultural landmarks, but I think its greatest achievement is that it saved an extraordinary piece of the city's industrial architecture.
Bankside Power Station could have become another lost building from Britain's industrial past.
Instead, the machinery disappeared and the art moved in.
The building that once generated electricity now attracts people from around the world to look at paintings, photography, sculpture and ideas.
You can visit Tate Modern purely for the art.
You can visit purely for the architecture.
I would recommend doing both.
For anyone interested in photography, buildings, industrial history or modern art, it is one of those places in London where there is always something worth pointing a camera at.
Tate Modern, London – a former power station that became a work of art in its own right.
Words and photographs by Daren Frankish – European Media
Comments
Post a Comment