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, part of the group now known simply as Tate.

History

The galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in 1981. The building was converted by architects Herzog & de Meuron and contractors Carillion, after which it stood at 99m tall. The history of the site as well as information about the conversion was the basis for a 2008 documentary Architects Herzog and de Meuron: Alchemy of Building & Tate Modern. The southern third of the building was retained by the French power company EDF Energy as an electrical substation (in 2006, the company released half of this holding).

The galleries

The collections in Tate Modern consist of works of international modern and contemporary art dating from 1900 onwards.

The Tate Collection is on display on levels three and five of the building, while level four houses large temporary exhibitions and a small exhibition space on level two houses work by contemporary artists.

Collection exhibitions

When the gallery opened in 2000, the collections were not displayed in chronological order but were rather arranged thematically into four broad groups: 'History/Memory/Society'; 'Nude/Action/Body'; 'Landscape/Matter/Environment'; and 'Still Life/Object/Real Life'. This was ostensibly because a chronological survey of the story of modern art along the lines of the Museum of Modern Art in New York would expose the large gaps in the collections, the result of the Tate's conservative acquisitions policy for the first half of the 20th century. The first rehang at Tate Modern opened in May 2006. It eschewed the thematic groupings in favour of focusing on pivotal moments of twentieth-century art, with further spaces allocated on levels 3 and 5 for shorter exhibitions. The current layout is:
Level 3 - Material Gestures
This focuses on abstraction, expressionism and abstract expressionism, featuring work by Claude Monet, Anish Kapoor, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse and Tacita Dean.Level 3 - Poetry and Dream
The sexually explicit section on this level currently features a drawing by the pseudo-anonymous French artist "Proper Man" entitled le cock et le balls which is his attempt to explore the tension between old and new attitudes to sexuality within an urban environment.

Tate Modern and the Millennium Bridge. The rebuilt Globe Theatre is in white, to the left

Level 5 - Energy and Process
This focuses on Arte Povera, with work by artists such as Alighiero Boetti, Jannis Kounellis, Kasimir Malevich, Ana Mendieta, Mario Merz and Jenny Holzer.
Level 5 - States of Flux
This focuses on Cubism, Futurism, Vorticism and Pop Art, containing work by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and the photographer Eugène Atget,

Temporary exhibitions

Level 1 - The Turbine Hall

The Turbine Hall, which once housed the electricity generators of the old power station, is five storeys tall with 3,400 square metres of floorspace. It is used to display large specially-commissioned works by contemporary artists, between October and March each year in a series sponsored by Unilever. This series was planned to last the gallery's first five years, but the popularity of the series has led to its extension until at least 2012.
The artists that have exhibited commissioned work in the turbine hall are:

• 2000 — Louise Bourgeois — Maman, I Do, I Undo, I Redo

• 2001 — Juan Muñoz — Double Bind - Stand beneath a low floor as lifts rise and fall through the space above

• 2002 — Anish Kapoor — Marsyas - Three steel rings sheathed in a one-piece PVC membrane

• 2003 — Olafur Eliasson — The Weather Project- A giant radiating orange sun

• 2004 — Bruce Nauman — Raw Materials - 22 audio recordings to stop and listen to

• 2005 — Rachel Whiteread — Embankment - Thousands of white boxes to wander between

• 2006 — Carsten Höller — Test Site

• 2007 — Doris Salcedo — Shibboleth - A big crack in the floor

• 2008 — Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster - TH.2058

• 2009 — Miroslaw Balka - How It Is - Walk into a very dark box, and try not to bash your nose into the furry wall

Level 2 - The Level 2 Gallery

The Level 2 Gallery is a smaller gallery located on the north side of the building which houses exhibitions of cutting edge contemporary art. Its exhibitions normally run for 2 – 3 months.

Level 4 - Major temporary exhibitions

As with levels 3 and 5, level 4 is broken into two large exhibition areas. This is used to stage the major temporary exhibitions for which an entry fee is charged. These exhibitions normally run for three or four months. The two exhibition areas can be combined to host a single exhibition. This was done for the Gilbert and George retrospective due to the size and number of the works.

Other areas

Small temporary exhibition spaces are also located in the space between the two galleries on levels 3 and 5. These are sometimes used to display recent acquisitions. Works are also sometimes shown in the restaurants and members' room. Other locations that have been used in the past include the mezzanine on Level 2 and the north facinging exterior of the building.

Access and environs

The closest tube station is Southwark, although a further pedestrian approach to Tate Modern is across the Millennium Bridge from St Paul's Cathedral or Mansion House tube station. Blackfriars Tube is currently closed until 2011. The lampposts between Southwark tube station and the Tate Modern are painted orange to show pedestrian visitors the way.

There is also a riverboat pier just outside the gallery called Bankside Pier, with connections to the Docklands and Greenwich via regular passenger boat services (commuter service) and the Tate to Tate service, which connects Tate Modern with Tate Britain.

To the west of Tate Modern lie the sleek stone and glass Ludgate House, the former headquarters of Express Newspapers and Sampson House, a massive late Brutalist office building.

Extension for 2012

Tate Modern has attracted more visitors than originally expected and plans to expand it have been in preparation for some time. These plans have focused on three areas for expansion all to the south of the building:

• The area no longer required by EDF Energy.

• Three large, disused, underground oil tanks originally used by the power station.

• A major new extension building to be built above the oil drums.

The design of the new extension building, also designed by Herzog & de Meuron, has been controversial. It was originally designed as a glass stepped pyramid, or zigurat, but this has recently been amended to incorporate a sloping façade in brick (to match the original power-station building ) after feedback on the original design was unfavourable. The extension will include galleries dedicated to photography, video, exhibitions and the community.

This project will cost approx. £215 million and is scheduled to open in 2012, in time for the 2012 Olympic Games being held in the city. Additionally, the Tate Britain will be undergoing refurbishment.

Gallery