The history and architecture of the Tate Modern

Introduction

In his Foreword toTate Modern: The Handbook, Director Lars Nittve writes: “every museum is alone ; Tate Modern’s individualism lies non merely in its aggregation or its location… but besides in its architecture.”

Indeed, what was one time known as the Tate Gallery has undergone a major overhaul.There are now four subdivisions: two in London ( one at Millbank ; the Tate Modern at Bankside ; one in St. Ives ; and one in Liverpool ) . Harmonizing to Nittve, “ the Tate at Millbank used to be the large female parent ship, where everything sat-curators, disposal, preservation, etc. Now we ‘re traveling to something more like a federation. ”

This paper will take a close expression at the Tate Modern, foremost researching its remarkable history and its architectural singularity. We will so concentrate on the wealth and assortment of its aggregation, which is divided into four basic subjects: landscape, still life, history picture, and nudes. Finally, we will analyze the Tate Modern in the larger model of modern-day art and media, taking note of its influence on the UK art market, and mensurating its position in the international art universe.

History of the Tate Modern

Nicholas Serota was appointed Director of the Tate at Millbank in 1988, and shortly after this decided to ship on a figure of alterations. In an effort to re-establish the “original architectural unity of the Millbank edifice, ” Serota decided to take all marks of ruse. He decided to kill the false ceilings and impermanent walls. He besides decided upon a major reorganization of the aggregation.

Welcome as these alterations may hold been, they besides brought to illume the fact that there was merely non plenty infinite to implement all these alterations if the museum were to stay in its current scene. This finally led to the determination to spread out, a move which has had far-reaching effects in the art universe, non merely in the UK but internationally.

The hunt for a new site finally led to the old Bankside Power Station. Originally designed and built after the Second World War, the Bankside Power Station was the work of Giles Gilbert Scott, a well-thought-of British designer. Scott besides designed the [ now defunct ] power station at Battersea, every bit good as the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral. He is best known, nevertheless, as the interior decorator of the “once omnipresent ruddy telephone box” ( Craig-Martin, 14 ) .

Michael Craig-Martin, one of the legal guardians assigned to look intoing possible sites for the new Tate, notes that:

The Bankside edifice was noteworthy for its field ruddy brick outside and the powerful symmetricalness of its horizontal mass, bisected at the Centre by a individual tall, square chimney. The edifice was articulated on three sides by a series of immense, good elaborate Windowss. The lone ornament came from the brickwork battlement along the building’s edging, smartly extenuating its great bulk” ( Craig-Martin, 14-15 ) .

The find of the Bankside Power Station opened up new views for the legal guardians of the new Tate. First of all was the issue of size: the Bankside Power Station was larger than any of them had imagined. Adjusting their outlooks to include such a huge infinite opened up an wholly new position every bit good as a universe of possibility.

Second of all, they had assumed that they would be commissioning a trade name new building—yet here was the power station, fundamentally integral. They now had to see the possibility that there would be no demand to level the bing edifice and get down over—what if they were to work with the bing construction, and do alterations as needed? This, clearly, would be a interruption from the manner things were traditionally done. Thus, after sing the Bankside Power Station, the trustees’ vision of what the new gallery could be began to alter, and their preconceived impressions were replaced by exciting new constructs ( Craig-Martin, 15 ) .

The being of so many positive factors convinced the legal guardians that the Bankside site was the best pick as the new site of the place of modern art. Not merely were the possibilities were ask foring ; besides to be considered was the location, which was ideal ; the possibility of development ; and the involvement and support of the local authorities.

Location was surely a major consideration ; this London location boasted ace conveyance installations, including the new tubing station at Southwark. In add-on, there was the possibility of a riverbank connexion with the Millbank gallery ( Craig-Martin, 15 ) . And the local Southwark Council wasted no clip in admiting the possible impact this could hold on the local community, an country much in demand of a fiscal and industrial encouragement: “The local council, Southwark, recognizing the possible impact of the Tate undertaking on development and employment in this mostly creaky country, enthusiastically supported it from the start” ( Craig-Martin, 15 ) .

Architectural Design

Resettlement to the Bankside site meant opened up a wealth of chance for the Tate. For starting motors, “the huge size of the edifice meant that the Tate would be able to more than duplicate its capacity for demoing its aggregation every bit good as lodging major large-scale impermanent exhibitions” ( Craig-Martin, 15 ) . Beyond this, the possibilities seemed even more exciting: even after enlargement, there would be a huge sweep of untasted infinite, go forthing the possibilities for continued growing and capacity for even greater acquisitions broad unfastened.

But inquiries of how to near and re-design this infinite still had to be sorted out. Director Nicholas Serota enlisted the aid of Trustee Michael Craig-Martin and sculpturer Bill Woodrow to see some of the newer museums of modern-day art on the Continent, and “to see them critically from our point of position as artists” ( Craig-Martin, 17 ) . In this manner, Serota helped to outdo use the new infinite, with an oculus on art, instead than architecture.

After sing a figure of modern museums, Martin and Woodrow found that for the most portion, modern museums better served “the involvements of designers and architecture than those of art and artists.” Clearly the involvements of art were non the primary consideration of those chosen to plan the infinite that would outdo show window it. “Many designers clearly considered planing a museum to be a premier chance for high-profile signature work. On the other manus few designers seemed genuinely to understand or be interested in the demands of art” ( Craig-Martin, 17 ) .

They reported these findings to Serota and the other legal guardians, with the ultimate consequence that there was a displacement in the thought behind the architectural attack. Now, “thecardinal concern of the design of the new edifice would be to turn to the demands of art through the quality of the galleries and the scope of chances, both sympathetic and ambitious, for demoing art. While seeking the best possible architectural solution, we determined that the undertaking would be art led non architecture led” ( Craig-Martin, 17 ) .

The determination of the legal guardians was non a popular one in many circles. Architects in peculiar felt deprived, seeing the determination merely in visible radiation of their ain possible growth—or deficiency thereof: “Some, seeing this as the treachery of a alone architectural chance for London, interpreted it as the consequence of a loss of institutional nerve” ( Craig-Martin, 17 ) .

Ultimately, Herzog & A ; de Meuron were selected to be the designers. They were the lone 1s whose design managed to maintain the edifice integral without doing major alterations to its basic construction, to appreciate the beauty and value already built-in in the existing construction: “Herzog & A ; de Meuron’s was the lone proposal that wholly accepted the bing building—its signifier, its stuffs and its industrial characteristics—and saw the solution to be the transmutation of the edifice itself into an art gallery” ( Craig-Martin, 17 ) .

Indeed, as pointed out byInsight Ushers:“Tate Modern has captured the public’s imaginativeness in a rather unprecedented manner, both for its shows and its edifice, which establishes a brilliant presence on the South Bank” ( 194 ) .

The Collection

Insight Guidesprovinces that the agreement of the aggregation makes it both “more accessible to, and more popular with, the general public” ( 194 ) . Alternatively of a chronology, the work is organized by a four offprint ( though true overlapping ) subjects. “The shows replace a individual historical history with many different narratives of artistic activity and suggest their relationship to the wider societal and cultural history of the 20Thursdayand early 21stcentury” (Insight Guides194 ) .

The four subjects are, fundamentally: landscape, still life, history picture, and nudes.

”Within each of these wide subjects it is possible to research a rich sentence structure of purpose and scheme, ” ( Blazwick & A ; Morris, 35 ) .

Landscape/Matter/Environment

When one thinks of landscapes, a assortment of scenes may come to mind: moving ridges crashing on a bouldery beach ; a skyline of dark, endangering clouds ; skyscrapers silhouetted against a sundown. As Blazwick & A ; Morris point out, “the genre of landscape is chiefly understood as a representation of a natural or urban scene, which might be topographic, metaphoric or sublime” ( 35 ) . At the Tate Modern, nevertheless, the genre of landscape has been “reconceived” to include “the zone of the fanciful, eldritch dreamscapes, symbolic visual images of anxiousness and desire” ( Blazwick & A ; Morris, 35 ) .

As Jennifer Mundy points out, landscape is an equivocal term and can hold several overlapping significances: “much of its resonance derives from the frequently unsure boundary between nature and civilization, the aim and the subjective” ( 42 ) . Thus a landscape may be a faithful rendition of the physical universe, such as the moony middle-class countrysides of Impressionism. Or it may be symbolic rendition of an interior landscape, such as the more vague plants of the Surrealists.

The Tate Modern’s “Landscape” aggregation attempts to reflect the scope and diverseness of this genre, while besides turn toing the complex menace of modern engineering. As Mundy notes, “today the menace posed to the environment by modern engineering and the growing of the human population has made the natural landscape a topical, even pressing, capable for art” ( 50 ) .

Still Life/Object/Real Life

Paul Moorhouse posits that “among the many extremist developments in the ocular humanistic disciplines during the last hundred old ages, one of the most important has been the extraordinary growing and transmutation of the genre known as still life” ( 60 ) . By the period of Cubism, “still life” no longer intend an apple on a home base, but instead the complexness of the relationship of the objects to each other and to the spectator: “The inertness of such objects as a glass, a bottle, a pipe or a newspaper provided a perfect vehicle for arousing the complex phenomenological relationships between such artifacts, the environing infinite and the spectator comprehending them” ( 62 ) .

The Tate Modern’s aggregation is a contemplation of the development of the signifier referred to as “still life, ” and which today defies definition. Harmonizing to Moorhouse, “this merger of the existent and the symbolic has created the conditions for a singular verve and diverseness in modern-day art” ( 68 ) , a verve and diverseness reflected in the Tate Modern’s ever-changing representations of the genre.

History/Memory/Society

The construct of “history/memory/society” is wide-ranging and ambitious, possibly deliberately so. “Public morality, political relations, political orientation, idealism and agony among other subjects still preoccupy creative persons today” remarks Jeremy Lewison ( 88 ) . The Tate Modern aggregation efforts to stand for these subjects as they are expressed in modernness, while reflecting the continuum in which they needfully exist. Clearly this is an ambitious undertaking, sing the battalion of methods used to show and associate these constructs across the ages.

“The survey of history has descended to the micro degree, ” postulates Lewison, adding that it has been, in a sense, “democratised.” History is no longer entirely the birthplace of leaders and heroes ; it is instead, in the custodies of the common person. The creative persons of today have followed a similar class, Lewison suggests, and, “by using the same schemes, by opening themselves to techniques and constructs derived from the human and societal scientific disciplines, creative persons today address issues relevant to modern-day life” ( 88 ) .

Nude/Action/Body

“Among the most ancient semisynthetic objects recognizable as belonging to the class that we call art are little bare human figures carved from rock or ivory” postulates Simon Wilson ( 96 ) . Clearly, as worlds we are obsessed with representations of the organic structure and this has been reflected throughout history.

The concluding decennaries of the 20th century have seen singular alterations in the construct of the human organic structure. Significant progresss in engineering, combined with the elongated life spans of our population, have spurred a re-thinking of what the organic structure is—indeed, at times it has seemed to go objectified. These alterations are of class reflected in art.

As Wilson points out, during this clip period “artists began to utilize their ain organic structure as the expressive medium, ab initio making needfully passing plants in the signifier of what became known as Performance art” ( 104 ) . This, in concurrence with usage of assorted media such as movie, picture, and still picture taking, is all portion of the Tate Modern’s programme in accurately capturing and stand foring this genre.

The Tate Modern and the International Art World

The success of the Tate Modern may hold ab initio seemed to overshadow the Tate Britain—however, a response like this certainly had to hold been expected. The choice of Giles Gilbert Scott’s Bankside Power Station as its new place was itself a newsworthy event. The subsequent pick of Herzog & A ; de Meuron as designers caused considerable bombilation in the art universe and the state at big. Therefore it is little admiration that when it eventually opened its doors, the universe was so dazzled by the Tate Modern.

Stephen Deuchar, Director of the Tate Britain, writes in theForewardto Humphrey’s book:

the creative activity in 2000 of Tate Modern and Tate Britain as typical entities with the Tate administration, were initial stairss towards the Renaissance of Millbank. Now, with many new galleries for shows and exhibitions, and with a future programme puting our aggregations within a overplus of new contexts, national and international, our function here as the world’s Centre for the survey and enjoyment of British art may emerge with fresh lucidity…

There is, nevertheless, no uncertainty that the Tate Modern will play an influential function in the art universe. It is alone in construct, as noted earlier, because it was carefully designed to run into the demands of the creative person, as opposed to those of the designer. As Craig-Martin pointed out, “while seeking the best possible architectural solution, we determined that the undertaking would be art led non architecture led” ( 17 ) .

In add-on, there is the simple, yet vitally of import issue of size and infinite entirely. The find of the Bankside Power Station opened up new views for the legal guardians of the new Tate. Bankside Power Station was larger than any of them had imagined, and the procedure of seting their outlooks to include such a huge infinite opened up an wholly new position. . Not merely were the possibilities were ask foring ; besides to be considered was the location, which was ideal ; the possibility of development ; and the involvement and support of the local authorities.

Beyond the mere physical belongingss such as architecture and size are the ways in which these properties are utilized. The vision of the Tate Modern therefore far seems to be on the film editing border. “The best museums of the hereafter will… seek to advance different manners and degrees of ‘interpretation’ by elusive appositions of ‘experience’” writes Nicholas Serota. He farther asserts that the best museums will incorporate some suites and works that will be “fixed, the pole star around which the others will turn… in this manner we can anticipate to make a matrix of altering relationships to be explored by visitants harmonizing to their peculiar involvements and sensibilities” ( 54-55 ) .

As Deuchar has said, “we no longer take to associate a individual narration of British art and civilization, but to research a web of narratives about art and about Britain, with our aggregations at its core” (Forewardto Humphreys’ book ) . And has Nittve has pointed out “ the Tate at Millbank used to be the large female parent ship, where everything sat—curators, disposal, preservation, etc. Now we ‘re traveling to something more like a federation” ( Frankel ) .

The Tate Modern, the necessary extension of this nucleus, may in fact be viewed as “a pole star” in itself, at the head of the modern art scene, with a universe of illimitable possible in front.

Reference List

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Craig-Martin, Michael. 2000. “Towards Tate Modern.” InTate Modern: The Handbook,explosive detection systems. Iwona Blazwick and Simon Wilson pp. 12-23.Berkeley: Uracil of CA Press with Tate Gallery Publishing Limited.

Frankel, David. April 2000. “Art Forum.”

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Massey, Doreen. 2000. “Bankside: International Local.” InTate Modern: The Handbook,explosive detection systems. Iwona Blazwick and Simon Wilson pp. 24-27. Berkeley: Uracil of CA Press with Tate Gallery Publishing Limited.

Moorhouse, Paul. “Still Life/Object/Real Life.” 2000. InTate Modern: The Handbook,explosive detection systems. Iwona Blazwick and Simon Wilson pp. 58-73. Berkeley: Uracil of CA Press with Tate Gallery Publishing Limited.

Mundy, Jennifer. 2000. “Landscape/Matter/Environment.” InTate Modern: TheHandbook,explosive detection systems. Iwona Blazwick and Simon Wilson pp. 40-53. Berkeley: Uracil of CA Press with Tate Gallery Publishing Limited.

Serota, Nicholas. 1996.Experience or Interpretation: The Dilemma of Museums ofModern Art.Walter Neurath Memorial Lectures, London: Birkbeck College.

Shone, Richard. 1997. “From ‘Freeze’ to House: 1988-94.” InSensation: Young British

Artists from the Saatchi Collection.London: Royal Academy of Arts.

Wilson, David M. , erectile dysfunction. 1989.The Collections of the British Museum.London: British Museum Press.

Wilson, Simon. 2000. “Nude/Action/Body.” InTate Modern: TheHandbook,explosive detection systems. Iwona Blazwick and Simon Wilson pp. 94-107. Berkeley: Uracil of CA Press with Tate Gallery Publishing Limited.

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