E U a I T E a M Oy N E T R N B I E R W

M E E T Y O U R N E W T A T E B R I T A I N Your local gallery reopens

Local community After five years of planning and two and a half years of work, the newly refurbished private view Tate Britain will open with an evening of special events for the local community Friday 29 November 18.30 – 21.00

On behalf of all the staff at Tate Britain show archive material documenting granddaughter. Four British artists the director Penelope Curtis is looking the great Thames flood of 1928 and have also been commissioned by Tate Britain to commemorate Programme forward to welcoming visitors from the impact of World War II. It will also the local community on the evening of showcase the various building projects the opening of the new spaces. Friday 29 November. As our neighbours undertaken over the years to develop, Alan Johnston, Nicole Wermers, Tours from Lead architect Rod Heyes we hope you feel that the project is expand and adapt the building to Richard Wright and Paul Noble of Caruso St John worthwhile and that you will be keen accommodate audiences spanning have all made artworks for you to to start making use of the new 116 years. encounter throughout the building. Talks on the History of Tate and the resources we are offering. local area by Tate’s archive specialist We have opened up the area Over the last couple of months, Krzysztof Cieszkowski underneath the front steps to create members of the local community the new Clore Centre which is an area have taken up our invitation to explore Tour of Art Under Attack: Histories specially designed to accommodate behind the scenes of the building site of British Iconoclasm exhibition school groups with lunch room facilities before it opens to the public. Visitors and lockers. The old Members Room enjoyed getting dressed up in hard Artist led workshop has been transformed into a new hats, high vis vests and boots and they in the new Clore Studio learning display gallery which will gave a very positive feedback to the showcase the outcomes of learning changes in the building. MPVSW1 Radio live broadcast projects with the local and wider from the new Taylor Digital Studio community. The new Clore Studio with You are invited to come back to floor to ceiling windows overlooking celebrate the completed new Singing performance by Millbank Gardens on John Islip Street, Tate Britain on the evening of Encouragement Through will host artist led workshops using 29 November at 18.30 – 21.00. the Arts and Talking (ETAT) all kinds of art materials. The new It will be a wonderful evening with Taylor Digital Studio will feature state guided tours of the galleries, an Tate Choir Performance of the art digital equipment including artist-led workshop and much more. 6 computers, 18 laptops and projector The entire event is free to attend and Film screenings from Tate Channel The hoardings will finally come down screens. All of the new spaces have complimentary refreshments will be and the beautifully restored Millbank been created with the local community served. We really hope you will come SW1 radio interviews entrance will once again be open. in mind. We hope that you will to celebrate your local gallery as it Entering from the front steps, you will come and make the most of the new enters into this new and exciting phase. Complimentary refreshments find a grand new spiral staircase in the resources and facilities available to you. Tate staff are here to support your middle of the Rotunda inspired by the involvement in the galleryboth as an original Edwardian Rotunda floor that The upper Rotunda Level which has individual or as a group. was demolished in 1937. The staircase been closed to the public since the Don’t forget to bring your leads down to the new Djanogly Café 1920’s has been transformed into a camera to capture this special ‘All of the new spaces have where we hope you will enjoy dining light, airy and elegant new Members community event and Tweet been created with the local al fresco on the patio terrace during Room complete with a 14-metre long your thoughts using #TateBritain the summer months. Opposite, the bar serving a seasonal British menu. community in mind. We hope Rex Whistler Restaurant will reopen Alongside this, a new room, The Grand that you will come and make with the famous Whistler mural, Saloon, has been opened. It is a new the most of the new resources The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats light filled event space overlooking the and facilities available to you’ 1926-27, sensitively restored. Both Thames featuring an ornate ceiling with the restaurant and the café will serve original victorian detail. a redesigned seasonal British menu. We are offering a free Tate Membership If you haven’t received your A number of British designers have worth £60 to one lucky winner who invitation in the post contact On this lower level there will also be been commissioned to design furniture attends the event on 29 November. [email protected] a new Archive Gallery where you can for the members area including an Just bring your invitation along to be or call 020 7821 2970 learn about the history of the site of original chair design by Edwin Lutyens, in with a chance to win. for more details Tate Britain and the local area. This who famously designed the Grosvenor room will show a time-line of events Estate on Page Street. The chairs have from the days of Millbank Prison to been custom made for Tate Britain opening the gallery in 1897. It will by a company owned by Lutyens’ Take a tour around the new building

The newly transformed spaces

Members Room Upper Level

Grand Saloon

Millbank Entrance

Principle Level

Rotunda Staircase

Clore Studio South East Galleries

Archive Gallery Clore Centre Entrance

Taylor Digital Studio Lower Rotunda Lower Level

Our local partners include

Ebury Estate Pimlico Millbank Estate Residents MEMO Churchill Gardens Estate Residents City West Homes The Abbey Centre Open Age Westminster South Westminster Action Network SWAN Community Organisers Sanctuary Housing Encouragement Through the Arts and Talking - ETAT Cardinal Hume Centre Westminster Boating Base The Thorney Island Society Salvation Army Westminster SW1 Radio Grosvenor Estate In Deep - befriending the community Marsham Street Children’s Centre Migrant Resource Centre MRC Pimlico Toy Library MPVSW1 Radio Open Age Westminster Small Works Victoria Peabody Westminster Citizens Advice Bureau Westminster Libraries and Culture Westminster Council Chelsea College of Art and Design

To find out more about events and projects at Tate Britain for local people, please contact Rebecca Blake, Regeneration and Community Partnerships Coordinator on 020 7821 2970 or email [email protected] Community groups explore Interview with Rod Heyes, lead the building site architect from Caruso St John

What was the main inspiration artificial lighting. The experience have worked around existing trees ‘We’ve never been here behind the refurbishment of the for the visitor is more vivid because and have modified the building in before but after today we will new Tate Britain building? the shifting brightness and colour of ways that do not compromise the daylight is part of the experience of character of the local Conservation be back every day’ The history of the Tate Britain is one of constant expansion and extension. In seeing the Modernist work currently Area. The construction has been this process some very beautiful and on display in the new galleries. complex and long-running but I hope valuable things have been left behind the impact on local residents has been or eclipsed. The project makes a new What have been the biggest challenges minimal and well-managed. whole from all of these fragments and so far in the project? binds them together. There is a radical The engineering of the gallery roofs Tate’s mission is to be more porous impulse to use ideas that are all latent was very complex and involved and engaging to local people. How do in the existing building and design working around existing historic you think the new building will help to with ‘found’ things rather than relying structures while combining excellent achieve these aims? on novelty. insulation and air-tightness with solar The building will be much more control and safety systems. But the cohesive once our project is complete What was the main purpose of the biggest challenge was to merge old with new lifts and staircases connecting project and how have Caruso St John and new architecture without the all three levels and a new, building- achieved this? design coming apart at the seams wide, signage system. Physical access The purpose is fourfold – to renew and without a rhetorical distinction has been improved and wider issues gallery spaces, to improve and clarify between the Victorian and the of inclusivity have been high on the circulation, to increase provision for contemporary. There are risks in doing agenda. There are new spaces for ‘The digital studio is really learning and to provide new social this – a kind of mushy, humourless school children and adult programmes exciting resource for our spaces. The refurbishment of the pastiche being the most obvious – and this should enable energetic and and we have worked hard to avoid this open learning. The refurbishment groups to use’ galleries involved the complete removal of the existing fabric, back but other people will have to judge of the gallery runs alongside a project to the primary structure. New roofs, whether we’ve been successful. to digitise Tate’s archive and this floor and walls combine with new will provide new opportunities for ventilation and lighting systems to What is the most rewarding aspect local people to access this amazing improve environmental control and about working on this project? resource. When the building completely reduce energy consumption. The other Tate is a very supportive and ambitious reopens in November new gallery three elements of the project make client. We have had rewarding spaces will host displays of archive use of existing spaces that were discussions with lots material, illuminating the history of closed to the public, hidden away of different departments and the the Millbank site. or under-utilised to create a series dialogue has been very creative – of rooms. There are forty two new perhaps one might expect this from How do you hope the local community interiors and, to a greater or lesser an organisation used to working with will respond to the new space? extent, they all mix restoration of artists. This has given us licence to One of the most gratifying and 1897 fabric with new construction. be experimental and to try and get frightening things about making any the best from those craftspeople creative work is the range of reactions A major part of this project involved making things for the project. I think one gets from those who visit the re-hanging the Tate Britain collection in the galleries are a noble kind of building. At one level I hope our design chronological order spanning 500 years background where the architecture is feels inevitable and sensitive and that of British art; how do you think the new quiet. The new social spaces are more some people barely notice the change. building reflects this journey? exuberant and I hope they are popular At another level, I hope people like The south east quadrant galleries, and succeed in a different way. what we’ve done and feel that we have which were refurbished in 2013, worked with old things in a way that’s house work made between 1930 How have you considered the local radical, exciting and open-ended. Most and 1959. When these galleries first community and the local environment of all, I hope the capacity of the Tate at opened in 1897, they were very bright in this project? Millbank is boosted and that a range of due to the large amounts of daylight We have designed the building to new activities, exhibitions and events allowed into the spaces, as 50% of the minimise the appearance of the new become possible. roof was glazed. We have reinstated technical installations and to prevent ‘It’s a wonderful view across natural light and eliminated internal any additional noise from plant and the river from up here’ blackout blinds and a reliance on other mechanical installations. We Celebrate the story so far and help write the next chapter

There have been nine different projects to build, extend and refurbish Tate Britain since it opened in 1897. The original building was just eight rooms and featured 245 artworks. On completing this project, the public will be able to enjoy 960 artworks displayed across more than 50 rooms.

During the Second World War the front lawns were used as allotments for local people © Tate Archive (Photographic collection)

Letter from the Plasterers’ Association © Tate Photography of 1897, found in 1985 The site plan for Millbank Prison © Tate Archive (TGA 971/50) © Wikipedia You are invited to celebrate the completion of the Tate Britain Millbank Project at your local community private view and launch event on Friday 29 November 18.30 – 21.00

The newly refurbished Tate Britain spaces will open to the public on Tuesday 19 November

Tate Britain is open every day 10.00 –18.00 and until 22.00 on Fridays

+44(0)20 7887 8888 tate.org.uk tategallery @tate #tatebritain