Peachy the Magazine October/November 2013 | Page 29

ART + ARCHITECTURE

Pyramide du Louvre. Photo by Juan Salmoral, 2007.Via Flickr.
Herzog & de Meuron converted, of
all things, a power station, into the
Tate Modern in London. The boiler
house became the galleries and the
Turbine Hall was transformed into a
display space that is unparalleled in
terms of its sheer size. The massive
dimensions of the Turbine Hall (115
feet high and 500 feet long) have given
artists the opportunity to create site
specific works they could not install in
any other museum. Olafur Eliasson’s
The Weather Project, Anish Kapoor’s
Marsyas, and Louise Bourgeiose’s
gigantic spider, Maman loomed over
the Turbine Hall as unprecedented
crowds fought to see art seemingly
spawned in another realm. The Tate

Modern’s absurdly high attendance
numbers—5.2 million just last year—
confirm that the public is clamoring for
the spectacle of scale.
Concurrently with the opening of the
Tate Modern, MoMA was planning
a major renovation and addition and
hired Tokyo architect Yoshio Taniguchi for the project. The renovation was
an emphatic statement that while the
museum’s commitment to modernism
would not waver, MoMA would also
strive to be at the forefront of presenting contemporary art. “Our challenge
is precisely the tension that comes
from trying to present both the immediate present and the immediate past,”
remarked MoMA Director Glenn Lowry.
OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2013

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