Tate Modern's extension plans

Do you know, Walter, when the T. modern was constructed? Just wondering.

I'm personally getting weary of the deconstructed pile of boxes/titanium sheets in the wind styles - while I do like a few of those projects - but that is separate from whether or not additions should relate to or be a simple extension of the existing, or be new and different, and I tend to vary with my opinion on that, depending on various factors.

In the Tate situation, I think it might be interesting to just continue the existing building.. perhaps putting a Different addition, much less related, where the tall addition to the back is. Or is that set of buildings to the back just background, and not part of the new addition? If there is no room to build "in the back", then I might like some extension of the existing building and then some kind of tower that, while different, related better than this box-dump. That's today's opinion, may change my mind. Anyway, I'd like to see more ideas.

Hmmm, the more I stare at it, the more it's the tiptop of the box dump that bothers me. I sort of like the mostly horizontal boxes (but not all) lower down.

What are you thinking on it, do you like the proposed addition?

Bankside Power Station - which is now Tate Modern - was built in two phases between 1947 and 1963, and designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.

Sir Serota got green lights for this extension - so it will be built that way or very similar.

At least, it 'upvalues' the old power station.

I enjoy figuring out what I think about it, even if it will be built per proposed plan.

Story and slide show here -
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2044822,00.html

I wonder what kind of art they plan to exhibit? Oil paintings are not
fond of ultra violet rays or intense light which I suspect might filter
through the glass cube exterior. Don't know how uv would affect sharks etc.

That's what critics say, shepaints: they don't have the art to present there.

They apparently have a tough time hanging/positioning art in the new Denver Art Museum building...

How interesting, Walter. I went to a gallery exhibiting some 19C paintings and the rooms were in complete darkness. Lights were only activated when one entered the space in order to create the least environmental
damage to the delicate paintings.

I rather like the addition to the Tate, though would prefer it as an independent structure rather than an extension.

There are two soon-to-be completed extensions in Toronto which also bear no resemblance to the original buildings... the Gehry extension to the Art Gallery of Ontario and Daniel Libeskind's crystal-like addition to the Royal Ontario Museum.

Not starting a new thread about that, but yesterday the Prado's extension opened after going £63m over budget


(above from yesterday's Spanish newspaper ABC, page 80)

Now that looks interesting..

Took me a while to open your link, Walter; I even went independently (hah) to the Independent site and that still took a bit of maneuvering. Maybe it's my computer today. Anyway, it eventually opened. I like that photo you posted.

Meanwhile, when that wasn't working, I looked up this article:
article on it in the International Herald Tribune

(Walter's article had more about the cloister..)

link to the Prado museum

Something different, the Reina Sofia museum addition by Jean Nouvel -

http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/portfolio/archives/0607ReinaSofia.asp

photo by Duccio Malagamba -




on the Thyssen-Bornemisza,
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_7_91/ai_104836749


From Google Images, this seems to be the addition

link - http://www.goontour.com/images/thysen.jpg

to the older museum

link - http://www2.kah-bonn.de/ausstellungen/thyssen/p/museogr.jpg

More Tate and Style, in the Observer

IMHO, few of these extensions improve on or relate to the original building. Many make me think of the truth of Prince Charles' controversial statement. He described a proposed addition to the National Gallery, London as "a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend".

I like wild and free buildings as much as the next person, but would rather some of the 'additions' not be so near mocking of the original. Of course, some originals could use some mocking. I'm interested in the interplay, the dance between them.

On the Tate addition, as I've looked at it more, I like some of the connections, and some of the proposal. The exploded boxes thing got out of hand, to me, with too many tectonic thrusts too soon... less is more, from my point of view, less can be stronger.

I suspect architect Yoshio Taniguchi has completed one of the most successful additions to an existing gallery. His extension to MOMA was hailed by the New York Times as: "a serene composition that weaves art, architecture and the city into a transcendent aesthetic experience."

a rave on the new Prado additon by Rafael Moneo HERE





(Oh, to see the Prado....)