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The
energy of the Tate Modern sweeps over visitors the moment they walk down
the ramp past the brightly-lit bookstore and ride the escalators past
translucent green glass panels. Each half-floor contains up to 16 galleries
with stark white walls and concrete or unfinished wood floors. The fifth
floor rises two stories to a café, shop and auditorium. A lightweight
luminous roof, fabricated from translucent panels, floods the galleries
with light and offers breathtaking views of London.
The Tate Modern is perhaps
one of the world's most famous examples of adaptive reuse. Standing
at the cornerstone of historic preservation, urban renewal and sustainable
development, adaptive reuse is the process of finding new life for old
buildings. It makes sense to reinvent rather than demolish, but attempts
to work with structures built decades ago can be like opening a hornet's
nest.
Building from the shell
of an older structure can be more costly than demolishing and building
from scratch. There may be structural problems which must be repaired.
The interior walls of many older buildings cannot be easily moved because
they may be essential for the structural support. What's more, the remodeled
building must meet the most current fire and safety codes. Provisions
must be made for handicap accessibility. A whopping 20 percent of the
overall construction budget may be consumed by the cost of removing toxic
materials such as asbestos and lead-based paint. To make matters worse,
an old industrial structure simply may not provide a suitable environment
for non-industrial uses such as museums, theaters, shopping enters or
schools.
 Critics
of the Tate Modern claim that the design of the new museum is counter
productive: Instead of celebrating art, it overshadows the collections
it contains. However, the artists who have exhibited there appear to like
the space. "You get all the spectacle of perhaps this amazing cathedral-like
space and then you go into these more intimate galleries, so you get the
best of both worlds," artist Cornealia Baker told reporters.
"You
cannot always start from scratch," Herzog and de Meuron said. "We
think this is the challenge of the Tate Modern as a hybrid of tradition,
Art Deco and super modernism: it is a contemporary building, a building
for everybody, a building of the 21st century."
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Photos
courtesy the Pritzker Prize Page
Reprinted with permission
Text
copyright ©
Jackie Craven
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