ABSTRACT
Tate Modern was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II, 11 May 2000. The evening launch party saw 4,000 guests attend the celebrations to what became the media event of the year. When the public walked through the doors of Tate Modern, 12 May 2000, they arrived eager to see what was inside. Yet less than a decade earlier, the organisation was criticised for using an old building instead of creating a new design opportunity for London. The Turbine Hall became Tate Modern's magnum opus, as if, itself, a gargantuan art work, shaped by the solid mass of the surrounding architecture. Ultimately, Tate Modern changed the public's expectations of how a national museum and gallery could be; it also shifted perceptions of where it could be. London's spatial turn saw buildings and areas that had been formerly allocated for one use being re-appropriated to another.
