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The Tate Modern's 328.6 Million Dollar Expansion
Wednesday September 08, 2010 |
 London’s first museum devoted solely to modern art, the Tate Modern, opened a mere decade ago but already the institution has solidified itself as a central force in British, as well as international, contemporary art. It’s overwhelming popularity has led to Nicholas Serota, director of all the Tate museums, to declare that the Tate Modern must expand. When we say ‘overwhelming popularity,’ it’s no joke. Forty-five million people have been through the galleries of the Tate Modern since its opening, more than twice the number officials had predicted. When it opened, officials expected two million to two and a half million people the first year. More than five million came. Annual attendance now hovers around four and a half million people (which is a lot for a museum to handle, when you realize that the Museum of Modern Art in New York estimated its attendance last year at about three million, a record for the institution.)
“A victim of its own success, the museum has overcrowded galleries, [Nicholas Serota] explained, and needs not just more space but also different kinds of spaces,” writes the New York Times. “This spring it broke ground on an extension next to the existing building on a plot of land with disused oil tanks that once held fuel to power London. Under construction is an 11-story glass-and-perforated-brick origami-like structure by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, who transformed the power station into the Tate Modern.”
The Tate Modern museum’s website features a live feed from the construction site, updated every 15 minutes at tate.org.uk/modern/transformingtm/today
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