Author Description

Tate Modern opened in 2000, since when it has become the most popular modern and contemporary art museum in the world, welcoming more than 5 million visitors a year. Working with the shell of the former Bankside Power Station, now internationally acclaimed architects Herzog & de Meuron created a gallery of singular power and beauty whose spaces, including the Turbine Hall, have afforded a sympathetic context in which to present and view modern and contemporary art. With the second phase of the building now complete, Tate Modern presents a striking combination of the raw and the refined, of found industrial spaces and thoughtful contemporary architecture. This is the definitive book of the building, and tells vividly the story of Tate Modern and the building of a twenty-first-century museum at a time when ideas about the role of the museum are rapidly evolving. Magnificent new photographs alongside texts by a range of leading architectural writers reveal and question the ideas behind its conception, the way in which it was designed and built, as well as the impact it has had on London, the UK and beyond. Conversations between Tate Modern Director Emeritus Chris Dercon and Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, as well as landscape architect Günther Vogt, interior designer Jasper Morrison, and graphic designer Ian Cartlidge, present the philosophy and interchange of ideas that drove this extraordinary project. Supplemented by technical information on construction and materials, and a detailed chronology, this is the essential guide to one of the world's most iconic buildings