The Tate Modern Project
Transforming Tate Modern
The development of Tate Modern has, from the beginning, been planned as a gradual process, allowing for reaction to the urban development of the surroundings. While on the northern, riverbank side, this duality is materialised in a dense urban forest of birch trees—a species which typically grows on industrial wasteland - the southern design refers to the site’s underlying history.
The walls on the southern side of the Tate Modern form the key element of the new landscape design. The landscape design intends to engage visitors in a narrative of the site’s geographic setting and industrial history. The design of the walls is based on recycled materials found along the nearby river, revealing the industrial past and transformation process the site underwent.
This translation of the physical properties of the landscape’s layers into a built artefact involved a slow, painstaking, and complex process of almost alchemical experimentation to obtain the desired materiality, texture, and colour. The crafting process involved a series of 1:1 experiments in composition, layering, exposure, sequence, and pouring method, resulting in a measured concrete methodology that was scaled up to an industrial process on-site.
Location_London, UK
Client_Tate Modern
Architect_Herzog & de Meuron
Type_Cultural, Public Realm
Size_1.4ha
Status_Completed, 2016
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