![]() ![]() The Tanks themselves are three sealed interlocking rotund caves into which no natural light enters. The three hollowed-out pits that constitute The Tanks adjoin the Turbine Hall at the back of the Tate Modern power station, which rises formidably from the banks of the Thames. These “raw, unmodernised spaces could radically alter the way people experience art,” explains Tate director Nicholas Serota. The Tanks at the Tate Modern is a spatial extension designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron to house a new form of art experience. “The Tanks and Transformers galleries are the opposite of the white box gallery, spaces where you are aware that you are underground, rich with texture and history, and uncompromisingly direct and raw, providing the viewer, artist and curator with new and different contexts and experiences completing the variety of spaces for art in the Tate Modern Project,” say the architects.I’m not saying every museum has to have a space of this kind, but when art from across the globe is pushing up against the boundaries, Tate must respond. Herzog & de Meuron, along with the Tate Modern, have expressed a desire to fuse the extension with the power station’s past and history. ![]() The other elements, including above-ground construction and addition concrete and steel underground spaces, will open in 2016. The tanks represent just a small part of the renovation, which will expand the Tate’s exhibition space by nearly 70%. Now, they function as a stark, rough venue for live performance art, which is often interactive in nature and resists the commodification of the art world in that it can’t be bought off its wall or pedestal and moved into a permanent collection. Measuring nearly 100 feet across and 23 feet in height, the oil tanks have been unused since the power station was decommissioned. Herzog & de Meuron has transformed the enormous oil tanks of the power station into underground galleries. And while the bulk of it is still under construction, set to open in 2016, the museum has opened the doors to the first phase. Once a power station, now a repository for some of the world’s most innovative art: the expansion of the Tate Modern art museum in London is repurposing industrial infrastructure in surprising ways. ![]()
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