Britain’s national gallery of modern art opened to visitors in May 2000 and rapidly became the world’s most visited modern art gallery. Each year, approximately 4.7 million visitors view the nation’s collection of modern art from 1900 to the present, and also other works of international modern and contemporary art.

The gallery occupies a massive brick building, once the site of Bankside Power Station, on the South Bank of the River Thames opposite St Paul’s Cathedral on the North Bank.

The old power station’s internal space for its electricity generators became the Turbine Hall, the gallery’s impressive entrance area. The Turbine Hall’s dimensions, 35m high and 152 m long, provide display space for the Tate Modern’s largest sculptural projects and installation art. The former boiler house ran alongside the old turbine area; this was transformed into galleries that stretch the length of the building and create observation points to view the Turbine Hall from above.

(My thanks to www.tate.org.uk for information.)