The Tate Modern
(found in Time magazine)
As power stations go, Bankside was a looker
a hulking lunker with tapering chimney
and squat symmetry enhanced by groups
of windows striping its entire height.
Also, it has size – which modern art loves
and a sooty past. Jacques Herzog
Pierre de Meuron, Harry Gugger
& Christine Binswanger didn’t mess too much
with the building. They wanted
to blur the boundaries of the monument
turn it into open space.
Blur’s the right word. It’s a gentle trans-
formation of a giant. The most astonishing
thing about it may be
that a looming great scary industrial complex
could become something so polite.
*
The galleries will make the artists happy
well-lit boxes (plain), with floors
of white oak (unsanded), polished concrete.
The art organised by subject – nudes
still life, landscape
history …
the idea of power
the idea of pools
that Red Slate Circle
those Water Lilies
Jo Thorpe