While Prime Minister David Cameron insists that secession would spell economic doom for the world’s fifth-largest economy, the “leave” camp has made gains in recent months with the help of Nigel Farage, a populist rabble-rouser who once told a sitting EU president that he had “all the charisma of a damp rag.”Īgainst the backdrop of next week’s referendum, the new wing of Tate Modern is a move towards the world, not away from it. The implication is clear: the people of the United Kingdom must forsake the resurgent nationalism that has characterized domestic politics in advance of a June 23 referendum on EU membership. In the milky light of an early summer rainstorm, Lord Browne enjoins the crowd to resist those “who would seek to dislodge this country from its rightful place” in the global community. Seated on a dais in the Turbine Hall were four dignitaries, including Sadiq Khan, the new mayor of London. At night, the Switch House is lit from within, a 10-story concrete monolith calling to the dignified masonry of St.
The idiosyncratic structure is reminiscent of a crumpled paper cup that has been inverted and slashed by a capricious hand, with irregular bands of fenestration tracking the building’s contours. Designed by Herzog & De Meuron, who developed the original Tate Modern 16 years ago, the Switch House is sheathed in a perforated lattice of 336,000 bricks, a slate-colored skin that rhymes with the brickwork of the Boiler House next door. On Tuesday, hundreds of reporters assembled for a sneak peek at the new wing, a 212-foot-tall pyramidal tower adjacent to the main building.
If the museum functions like a medieval cathedral - as the Lord Browne of Madingley, chairman of Tate’s Board of Trustees, suggested in a packet of materials distributed to reporters - the Turbine Hall is the nave, a space for aesthetic parishioners to marvel at the wizardry of temporary, site-specific installations like Olafur Eliasson’s domesticated sun (“The Weather Project,” 2003–2004) or Doris Salcedo’s subterranean chasm (“Shibboleth,” 2007–2008). LONDON - The day began in the Turbine Hall, the 85-foot-tall atrium at the heart of Tate Modern, the most visited museum of modern and contemporary art in the world. View of the Switch House, and the chimney of the Boiler House, from the southeast side of the building (all photos by the author for Hyperallergic)
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