Extended London art gallery in former power station that was set to open for 2012 Olympics boasts 20,700 sq m more space

The new-look and expanded Tate Modern will open in 2016, following a £260m revamp featuring a 10-storey extension and 60% more gallery space.

Around 5,000 schoolchildren will be the first visitors on 16 June next year with a dedicated preview day before the gallery opens to the general public.

The expanded Tate Modern, designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron, is being hailed as the most important new cultural building in the UK since the British Library in 1998.

The organisation considers the project to be a completely new gallery, not just an extension. It is effectively in three sections on the site of what was the Bankside power station: the existing boiler house closest to the river, the Turbine Hall in the middle and the new Switch House extension to the south adding 20,700 sq m (222,813 sq ft) of gallery space.

The Turbine Hall featuring Richard Tuttle’s 2014 installation I Don’t Know . The Weave of Textile Language. Photograph: Anthony Devlin/PA

It is a vast project, one which was originally meant to be completed in time for the London 2012 Olympics. When it became clear that was never going to happen, Tate opened up the tanks space, based in underground former oil tanks, for 2012 only.

The new Tate Modern will get a complete rehang of the permanent collection, with far more space for performance and interactive art.

In terms of art, there will be the familiar and the unexpected. Tate’s director, Sir Nicholas Serota, said: “There will be old friends and new friends – Pablo Picasso, Joseph Beuys and Mark Rothko will be joined by artists introduced to the public by Tate Modern in recent years, including Saloua Raouda Choucair, Meschac Gaba, Daidō Moriyama and Cildo Meireles.”

The total cost of the development has moved upwards from £215m to £260m to bring it in line with 2016 prices.



“The new Tate Modern is an instrument that will allow us to present a changing perspective on the world, offer a rich variety of experiences to visitors and give opportunities to artists to explore new ways of making and showing their work,” Serota said.

The decision to allow schoolchildren in first was carefully considered. Serota said: “Opening a building like this is not just about the here and now, it is primarily about the future. Tate should be making differences to people’s lives by offering the experience of art to all.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A performance of Boris Charmatz’s Flip Book when the Tanks were opened in 2012 Photograph: Tate Photography

“It is vitally important that every child in the UK should see the art of the past and the art of our own time, wherever they are.”

“We must, in spite all the pressures, sustain and develop our museums, stimulating and nurturing aspiration for future generations.”

The pressure Serota alludes to might include spending cuts coming to the arts and museums sector as part of the latest round of government austerity measures. Tate is expecting more public money simply because its running costs will be so much higher.

Serota said the chancellor George Osborne could have cancelled the government’s commitment to the new Tate Modern project when he came into office in 2010. “He refused to do so. He is a great believer, I think, in the project we have got here and I’m confident that he will honour the commitment made in November last year to help fund the running costs of Tate Modern.”

Some commentators have suggested that the free entry policy of the major museums, brought in by Tony Blair’s government in 2000, may have to be reviewed because of funding cuts.

Lord Browne, the chairman of Tate’s trustees, said: “As far as we’re concerned, it would be the last thing that we would do. We do not wish to charge for general admission, it goes against the concept of what this place is … art owned by the nation for the nation, and therefore should be seen openly and fully without charging.”

Will Self: are the hyper-rich ruining the new Tate Modern? Read more

There was still around £30m to raise to get to the final £260m required but Serota said he was confident of getting over the line.



Chris Dercon, the director of Tate Modern, who will leave next summer for a job in Berlin, said the new gallery was a milestone in terms of museum architecture, just as the original Tate Modern was when it opened in 2000.



“It is a very different type of museum building … what we need is to reinvent not just the definition of what a museum is and who it is for and what we do, but also what it feels like.”

A search for Dercon’s replacement starts this month with an appointment expected in the new year.

The extension will include the Tanks, the world’s first museum spaces dedicated to live and performance art. Above them will be new gallery space, some of it intimate, and on level 10 will be a public terrace offering spectacular 360-degree views of the city.



On Tuesday Tate also revealed record visitor numbers across its galleries in London, Liverpool and St Ives. A total of 7.9 million people visited in 2014/15, with 5.7 million visits to Tate Modern. More than 3.5 million visitors were under the age of 35.