Tate Modern (0)

• Tate Modern is the national gallery of international modern art
  
• it is one of the family of four Tate galleries which display selections from the Tate Collection( British art from the year 1500 to the present day) and the national collection of international modern art( art since 1900).
  
• The building was created in the year 2000.
  
• problem was whether the modern art gallery should be a new building or a conversion of an existing building
  
• amazing location on the south bank of the River Thames opposite St Paul's Cathedral and the City of London.
  
• The power station consisted of a huge turbine hall, thirty - five metres high and 152 metres long, with, parallel to it, the boiler house.
  
• The chimney was capped by a coloured light feature designed by the artist Michael Craig -Martin, known as the  Swiss Light. At night , the penthouse lightbeam and the Swiss Light mark the presence of Tate Modern for many miles.
  
• The Swiss Light has been supported by the Government of Switzerland.
  

History

• Built in two phases between 1947 and 1963, Bankside Power Station
  
• designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott . (Liverpool Anglican Cathedral, University libraries in Oxford and Cambridge , Waterloo Bridge , and the designer of the famous British red telephone box.)
  
• The western half of the structure(the chimney) replaced in 1952.
  
• The eastern half of the building was brought into commission in 1963.
  
• In 1981 Bankside Power Station closed due to increased oil prices.
  
• In the late  1980s a search began for a suitable site to build on.
  

• consists of four wings on Levels 3 and 5 of the gallery. At the heart of each wing is a large central display(hub), which focuses on one of the most important moments of twentieth- century art history.
  
• The four hubs feature Surrealism, Minimalism , post-war abstraction in Europe and the US, and the three linked movements: Cubism, Futurism and Vorticism.