London Culture's Favourite Tate Modern Expands
Famously one of the world's most popular contemporary and modern art galleries, London's Tate Modern has been adding to its site a much-needed extension, and with an opening date of 17th June 2016, we're more than eagerly excited for this! Located in one of London's most cultural of areas that has grown since seeing its transformation of the former Bankside Power Station in 2000, the architects of both projects - Herzog & de Meuron - are back to make their mark on London.
Tate Modern's influence on London in the last 16 years is all there to be seen, and its energetic input to the South Bank and Southwark is fantastic, being a massive impetus for much of the capital's artistic, cultural and social life. With this new development set to add another dimension to the architecture, space and environment of the London borough, Tate Modern will soon connect Southwark and the Thames via a much improved public open space plaza. Looking to be a new model for museums of modern and contemporary art across the world, Tate Musuem will soon offer a fully integration of their display, learning and social functions to provide significant anchor links between the museum, its locality and the city, and display much more of its continually-growing collection to the public.
With the original building built by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott sometime before 1960, 2016's Summer will see the building expand much beyond its original intentions. With four new floors to be dedicated to permanent exhibitions, all temporary exhibitions will remain in the original building for the time-being, thus highlighting just how far the gallery has come in terms of attracting the world's leading contemporary arts collections. With a brief public glimpse in 2012 of the famous tank galleries, this Summer will also see these re-open, and with ten new floors above them, the site will see a new restaurant and bar, a members-only facility and a panoramic viewing platform.
With early-bird interest, SATORI & SCOUT are told that the fifth floor will play host to Tate Modern's latest project - 'The Tate Exchange' - whereby this innovative gallery space will be "...a dedication to the exploration of wider social issues through art...", Tate mentions. With interactive events and dialogue avenues between artists, speakers and the public, the space will certainly be experimental. As well as massively increasing their gallery space offering, Tate Modern are also soon to offer a diverse collection of public spaces dedicated to relaxation and reflection, making and doing, group learning and private study. With these niche spaces spread all over the building, each linked by a wonderful public circulation system, everything that they are marketing are things we cannot wait to explore...
With elements of old and new, with a nicely-designed addition to the city's skyline and with a fantastic opportunity to further develop London's credentials as a world-leading, multi-cultural city, the Tate Modern is absolutely worth a visit. Roll on 17th June 2016! For directions and seeing what's on, we encourage you to visit at Tate.org.uk.
Photography credit : HerzogDeMeuron.com