Tate Modern

A disused coal-fired power station on the Thames became one of the most visited art museums in the world. Herzog & de Meuron kept Giles Gilbert Scott’s brick building and the vast Turbine Hall. On top they placed a light box of glass.

Bankside Power Station was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, who also designed the red telephone box, and was built in stages after the Second World War. The power station closed in 1981. The Tate Gallery needed a museum for modern art, and after a competition in 1994–1995 the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron were chosen. The conversion took place in 1995–2000, and the museum opened in May 2000.

The architects kept most of the brick building and made the Turbine Hall a large public entrance and exhibition space. It is so big that artists have made installations there, such as Olafur Eliasson’s sun in 2003. On the roof the architects placed a glass box that glows in the evening and lets in light. The galleries are in the former boiler house, on several floors. In 2016 an extension, the Blavatnik Building, opened, with a twisted pyramid form clad in a lattice of brick.

Tate Modern has become one of the most visited art museums in the world and has transformed Bankside. It shows how industrial buildings can be given a new use and has influenced conversions of old power stations and factories in many countries. Herzog & de Meuron received the Pritzker Prize in 2001.

• Contemporary architecture
• Herzog & de Meuron