ABSTRACT
The National Museum of Modern Art in the Pompidou Centre, Paris, designed by Renzo Piano and Richard Rogers (1972–77), and the Tate Gallery of Modern Art, London, the conversion of an industrial building by the Swiss architectural team Herzog and de Meuron (1995–2000) are two museums that share conspicuous similarities. Both are large-scale national museums of modern art, in buildings that constitute urban landmarks (Figure I.1c–d), with ground floor entrance spaces conceived as spaces to be walked through, in the manner of a public piazza. In terms of gallery layout, both have a tripartite modular structure, with a visual axis traversing the length of the building, and in both cases the visual organization is punctuated by powerful views to the city. Their affinities extend to their collections, with both beginning with the turn of the twentieth century and extending to the twenty-first century, and to their curatorial practices of reprogramming the galleries on a regular basis and involving artists in exhibition design.
