The genesis of Tate Modern

2016-06-21T12:06:00-04:00

When we first visited Bankside Power Station for the original Tate Modern competition in 1994, it seemed like the castle in Sleeping Beauty – an enormous urban mountain that was completely overgrown, surrounded by barbed wire and prickly roses, as if protecting the hidden beauty inside. It seemed dangerous. It is totally unimaginable now, but this was a huge chunk of the city that was totally excluded from public life, set back behind high walls.

Herzog and de Meuron in conversation with Rowan Moore

2016-05-17T14:36:00-04:00

As Herzog explains, piling some refined Swiss biscuits on the table in front of him to illustrate his point, an earlier design envisaged stacked-up glass cubes, but the material was too similar to the developers’ stuff. “We realised that in order to survive we have to strengthen it,” he says [..] Yet the precedent of the original Tate Modern – also severe on the outside, lively inside – shows that a building doesn’t have to gurn and wheedle to be popular.

"In this and other works, Herzog and De Meuron like to present a protestant moment of denial before pleasure, to forbid before welcoming, to be severe before generous. It is part of their worldview, different from most architects’, in which delight and beauty co-exist with more troubling or mysterious aspects of existence."

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The genesis of Tate Modern

Herzog and de Meuron in conversation with Rowan Moore