BenL
June 11th, 2006, 10:33 AM
I don't know if this has already been mentioned. Feel free to delete if it has, but I noticed plans for an extension to the Tate Modern on South Bank in London today.
Tate 2 zig-zags into creation
Robert Booth
IT is inspired by the ziggurats of ancient Babylon, but to some the giant glass structure planned for the south bank of the Thames resembles the work of an eight-year-old with a tub of bricks.
Either way, the Tate Modern’s £140m extension promises to give London an art gallery with architectural ambitions to rival the boldness of the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the pyramid of the Louvre in Paris. Plans are due to be unveiled next month.
Dubbed Tate Modern 2, the building is intended to be completed in time for the London Olympics in 2012 and will almost double the gallery space of the world’s most popular modern art gallery.
The Tate has appointed Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss architectural group, that is building the Olympic stadium in Beijing in the shape of a bird’s nest and has designed art galleries in America. The firm oversaw the conversion of the disused Bankside power station into the original Tate Modern in 2000. Attendance was projected at 2m, but 5.3m visited in 2004-5.
Tate Modern 2 will be a crystalline form rising 30ft higher than the roofline of the old 1930s brick power station. One designer who has seen the scheme described it as a “deconstructed ziggurat” — a 21st-century version of the stepped temples built from 2000BC by the Sumerians and Babylonians.
The regular shape of a ziggurat will be distorted with bulges and overhangs and, according to one recent design, will be clad in green glass reconstituted from old television screens. It will plunge beneath ground to create a performance area. The source said: “It will be like a clever eight-year-old playing with building blocks.”
“This will be leading-edge architecture and like nothing we have seen in London before,” said Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate. He said it would be the first significant cultural centre to be built in the capital since the National Theatre opened in 1976.
Since then, attempts by contemporary architects to build museums and galleries in London have been jinxed. The lottery rejected a design by Daniel Libeskind, architect of the new World Trade Center in New York, to extend the Victoria and Albert museum with a design like an angular spiral.
One of several plans in contention to equip the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square with a contemporary wing was scuppered after the Prince of Wales called it “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of an old friend”.
Hugh Pearman, architecture correspondent of The Sunday Times, said the capital was overdue for a “new and clearly contemporary” cultural building.
“At the turn of the millennium, London was the only part of the UK which did not get an all-new cultural building [while Salford gained the Lowry and a new art gallery was built in Walsall]. If this is sufficiently distinct from the power station then it has the potential to make up for the collapse of Libeskind’s spiral project.”
Visitors to the Tate have complained of overcrowding at its blockbuster shows. In 2002 the gallery was forced to stay open through the night when 500,000 people crammed in to see its Picasso and Matisse exhibition. Serota said: “We’d like people to be able to slow down, see the art, watch a performance and not trip over each other.”
Serota said Tate Modern 2 would largely be funded by private donors, with a relatively modest amount of public money. By contrast, the conversion of the power station into a gallery cost £134m, with £68m from lottery and taxpayers’ money. “We recognise that lottery and public funds are under great pressure and we will be looking to individuals who care about the arts in London for support on this project,” he said.
The new building will be used to display photography and video galleries, including works by Bruce Nauman, the US artist who shot a video called Clown Torture of a clown repeatedly screaming: “No!” The Tate is also in talks with the Design Museum for a separate £50m gallery on a neighbouring site.
Source: Sunday Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2220638,00.html
The website doesn't show the picture but it looked, from the one black and white picture in the paper to be quite Gehry-influenced. I think I liked it although I fear it may take something away from the Orwellian symmetry of the building which I like so much.
Tate 2 zig-zags into creation
Robert Booth
IT is inspired by the ziggurats of ancient Babylon, but to some the giant glass structure planned for the south bank of the Thames resembles the work of an eight-year-old with a tub of bricks.
Either way, the Tate Modern’s £140m extension promises to give London an art gallery with architectural ambitions to rival the boldness of the Guggenheim in Bilbao and the pyramid of the Louvre in Paris. Plans are due to be unveiled next month.
Dubbed Tate Modern 2, the building is intended to be completed in time for the London Olympics in 2012 and will almost double the gallery space of the world’s most popular modern art gallery.
The Tate has appointed Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss architectural group, that is building the Olympic stadium in Beijing in the shape of a bird’s nest and has designed art galleries in America. The firm oversaw the conversion of the disused Bankside power station into the original Tate Modern in 2000. Attendance was projected at 2m, but 5.3m visited in 2004-5.
Tate Modern 2 will be a crystalline form rising 30ft higher than the roofline of the old 1930s brick power station. One designer who has seen the scheme described it as a “deconstructed ziggurat” — a 21st-century version of the stepped temples built from 2000BC by the Sumerians and Babylonians.
The regular shape of a ziggurat will be distorted with bulges and overhangs and, according to one recent design, will be clad in green glass reconstituted from old television screens. It will plunge beneath ground to create a performance area. The source said: “It will be like a clever eight-year-old playing with building blocks.”
“This will be leading-edge architecture and like nothing we have seen in London before,” said Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate. He said it would be the first significant cultural centre to be built in the capital since the National Theatre opened in 1976.
Since then, attempts by contemporary architects to build museums and galleries in London have been jinxed. The lottery rejected a design by Daniel Libeskind, architect of the new World Trade Center in New York, to extend the Victoria and Albert museum with a design like an angular spiral.
One of several plans in contention to equip the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square with a contemporary wing was scuppered after the Prince of Wales called it “a monstrous carbuncle on the face of an old friend”.
Hugh Pearman, architecture correspondent of The Sunday Times, said the capital was overdue for a “new and clearly contemporary” cultural building.
“At the turn of the millennium, London was the only part of the UK which did not get an all-new cultural building [while Salford gained the Lowry and a new art gallery was built in Walsall]. If this is sufficiently distinct from the power station then it has the potential to make up for the collapse of Libeskind’s spiral project.”
Visitors to the Tate have complained of overcrowding at its blockbuster shows. In 2002 the gallery was forced to stay open through the night when 500,000 people crammed in to see its Picasso and Matisse exhibition. Serota said: “We’d like people to be able to slow down, see the art, watch a performance and not trip over each other.”
Serota said Tate Modern 2 would largely be funded by private donors, with a relatively modest amount of public money. By contrast, the conversion of the power station into a gallery cost £134m, with £68m from lottery and taxpayers’ money. “We recognise that lottery and public funds are under great pressure and we will be looking to individuals who care about the arts in London for support on this project,” he said.
The new building will be used to display photography and video galleries, including works by Bruce Nauman, the US artist who shot a video called Clown Torture of a clown repeatedly screaming: “No!” The Tate is also in talks with the Design Museum for a separate £50m gallery on a neighbouring site.
Source: Sunday Times http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2220638,00.html
The website doesn't show the picture but it looked, from the one black and white picture in the paper to be quite Gehry-influenced. I think I liked it although I fear it may take something away from the Orwellian symmetry of the building which I like so much.