please empty your brain below

I think I would have preferred the glass building, the 11 storey brick structure looks rather drab and odd. Like many of the exhibits you see inside the Tate Modern.
I would not mind going along to see the tower of 800 radio sets by Cildo Meireles. Not for the "art" but I like old radios.
The new Tate 'BAR SHOP' building was certainly interesting and intriguing but it did have some curious features.  Firstly, I was struck by how comparatively small it is.  Despite it being 10 floors high, the tapering design means there's less and less actual floor space as you go up.  Even on the lower floors, the amount of new gallery space is surprisingly small.  I suppose the four floors of new offices and general purpose spaces must be liberating some space in the 'old' building to give them the 60% more galleries they say they now have. 

While there were elegant, wide curving flights of stairs between the first four gallery floors, with glimpses through the angled windows across the London skyline, this reduced to a series of rather narrow, straight, staircases from thereon up.  So on Friends' preview day there was a trail of exhausted people of mature years tramping up and down, to and from the 10th floor viewing gallery, the 9th floor restaurant and the 8th floor Friends' room.  Of course we could have taken the lifts, but these had the same problem as in the 'old' Tate Modern building - that despite there being four lifts, they took ages to arrive and were full when they did.  And unlike the 'old' Tate, there are no escalators to help out. 

However, when we sought refuge from the crowds and dodged across the new 4th floor bridge into the old building,  we were reminded that the regular collection has some absolutely knockout stuff on display - and it's all free!
I like the building for the strangeness of its construction. On Thursday when it was open to Members a few people had filled in feedback forms objecting to the Macaws being on display.
There was quite an old installation about the lives of people displaced to 3 cities, which I found very moving.
I'll go along soon to see whether I'm still a philistine but, looking at the top photo of the building, I'm still trying to get 'carbuncle' out of my head.

Somehow you expect to see guards (who's that silhouette?) with dogs and machine guns poking out from those slits...
Loved the place before - looks like there's even more to love about it now. Revisit date added to the diary!
Plenty of space to house 'art' in London, now just got find (affordable)space to house people.
Personally I like the way it has been built to a similar design to the original building. So it fits in far more than a modern glass and steel architecture which I think would look jarring.
I'm not into 'modern art', but I wouldn't mind seeing that gentleman who can open a copy of the Financial Times with a cup of coffee! 😉










TridentScan | Privacy Policy