A view from the bridge.Wails of dismay recently greeted Herzog & de Meuron's proposed extension to the Tate Modern The Tate Modern in London is Britain's national museum of international modern art and is, with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives, and Tate Online[1], part of the group now known simply as Tate. in London at least from some quarters. The visualisations seem to have frightened fright·en v. fright·ened, fright·en·ing, fright·ens v.tr. 1. To fill with fear; alarm. 2. many of the natives; how could the Tate, which opposed and finally killed off a modest residential tower proposal nearby on the grounds that it interfered visually with the old power station chimney, now propose a cast glass ziggurat ziggurat (zĭg`  răt), form of temple common to the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians. The earliest examples date from the end of the 3d millenium B.C. much higher than the main body of the old building? How could the cool Swiss Modernism of the original project suddenly transform into something resembling the deconstructionist de·con·struc·tion n. A philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; asserts that words can only refer to other words; and attempts to demonstrate how statements forms that Danny Libeskind failed to realise at the Victoria and Albert Museum Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, opened in 1852 as the Museum of Manufacturers at Marlborough House. It originally contained a nucleus of contemporary objects of applied art bought from the Great Exhibition of 1851 at the instigation of the ? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The answer lies partly in the visualisations released to the media, which attracted far more attention than the detailed presentation of plans and sections at the launch conference. The loathsome British habit, of attacking an architectural proposal (on the basis of one image) as though it were already a completed building, was evident in all its worm-ridden glory. This is the building (or something like it) the Tate always wanted to do: new, dramatic and uncompromised. In the political and planning contexts of the late 1990s, it is almost inconceivable that this proposal would have won planning permission planning permission Noun formal permission granted by a local authority for the construction, alteration, or change of use of a building planning permission n → licencia de obras , especially on this site. It is a mark of the increasing openness of London as a cultural capital that it can now be contemplated as highly likely to get all its permissions without huge difficulty. At an anticipated cost of more than [pounds sterling]200 million, it was essential that the building should have the sort of character that would attract substantial private donations, and a less convincing earlier design was quietly shelved. The key features of the proposal are the exploitation of the cleaned-out oil tanks (creating a new level and performance-spaces potential); the stacking of large cast-glass blocks from a basic pyramid structure to accommodate gallery and other spaces (ends will be transparent); and the provision of connections through to the old building through bridge links at second and fifth floor levels. Thus the 'ambivalent, experimental and fragmentary' contrasts with the 'unequivocal, hermetic hermetic /her·met·ic/ (her-met´ik) impervious to air. her·met·ic or her·met·i·cal adj. Completely sealed, especially against the escape or entry of air. and monolithic' power station. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This is a design of complexity and sophistication so·phis·ti·cate v. so·phis·ti·cat·ed, so·phis·ti·cat·ing, so·phis·ti·cates v.tr. 1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly. 2. which will mark out Tate Modern, at least architecturally, as the most important gallery of its type in the world. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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