Tate Modern

Words: Cass Stern
Photos: LeonU, kelvinjay, Memitina, dynasoar, Elena Zolotova, godrick, fotoVoyager, OGULCAN AKSOY, MOF, Paulish, claudiodivizia, David Taljat, cristapper, Magnus Bjermo

The Tate Modern’s industrial past is still visible from across the Thames.

Long before the building became one of the world’s best-known museums, it operated as the Bankside Power Station, a coal-fired facility designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and constructed between the late 1940s and early 1960s.

The original structure was built with roughly 4.2 million dark brown bricks, many of which remain in place today. The masonry was designed to withstand vibration, heat cycling, exposure to pollution, and the daily demands of power generation. More than 60 years later, the exterior walls still define the building's character.

When redevelopment plans emerged during the 1990s, the masonry shell quickly became one of the structure’s most valuable assets.

When the power station closed in the early 1980s, demolition remained a possibility for several years. Instead, planners chose to retain the existing shell and build the museum conversion around it.

Over the next two decades, the building became a complicated restoration job involving selective brick replacement, mortar analysis, façade cleaning, structural retrofits, and the challenge of bringing a mid-century industrial structure up to modern museum standards.

The original power station was designed by British architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, whose work also included Battersea Power Station and Liverpool Cathedral. Like many major civic and industrial buildings constructed in postwar Britain, Bankside was designed with longevity in mind.

Most of the building’s visual mass came from the brick exterior.

Roughly 4.2 million dark brown bricks were used across the exterior. The masonry had to withstand vibration from the plant, heat cycling, London weather, and decades of soot and pollution from the riverfront industrial corridor.

The wall sections remain noticeably heavier than is common in many contemporary commercial buildings.

Large stretches of uninterrupted brickwork still show consistent coursing and joint alignment across the exterior elevations.

The building’s central chimney, rising roughly 325 feet above London, became one of the city’s defining industrial landmarks. While the chimney itself relied heavily on reinforced concrete construction, the surrounding brickwork established the building’s visual character.

More than half a century after construction, the original brickwork still dominates the structure's appearance, despite decades of industrial use and heavy public traffic after the museum conversion.

Bankside Power Station stopped operating in the early 1980s. At the time, demolition would have been the easier path. Instead, preservationists and planners recognized the value of the existing structure, particularly the masonry shell and steel framework.

The decision preserved much of the original structure instead of clearing the site for new construction.

Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron was selected to convert the former power station into what would become the Tate Modern, which opened in 2000.

By the time redevelopment plans moved forward, the masonry had already endured decades of exposure to industrial pollution, moisture infiltration, and normal weathering. Restoration teams were tasked with upgrading the structure for museum use while preserving the original appearance of the exterior envelope.

Large sections of the façade were left intact rather than rebuilt for appearance alone. Repair work focused primarily on deteriorated areas and failing mortar joints.

Instead of stripping away large sections and rebuilding them with modern materials, crews repaired what could be saved, repointed failing joints, and replaced damaged brick only where deterioration was beyond recovery.

Preservation crews were trying to save as much original material as possible while still preparing the structure for millions of annual visitors.

Cleaning methods were selected carefully to avoid damaging the fired outer surface of the brick. Restoration crews focused on removing industrial staining and buildup while preserving the weathered texture of the original masonry.

Mortar compatibility created additional challenges during the restoration process.

Some modern mortar mixes would have been too rigid for the original brickwork. Over time, trapped moisture could have accelerated cracking and spalling across sections of the façade.

Before repointing work began, the original mortar was analyzed to ensure replacement mixes remained compatible with the historic wall system. Using overly hard modern mortar could have altered moisture movement within the masonry, increasing the risk of cracking or spalling over time.

Crews replaced brick only in areas where deterioration had advanced beyond repair.

Where damage was too severe for repair, replacement units were sourced to closely match the original brick dimensions, texture, and color variation. On a building containing millions of bricks, maintaining visual consistency required close coordination between suppliers, architects, and restoration crews.

New structural supports, climate-control systems, electrical infrastructure, and gallery spaces all had to fit inside a building that was never designed for museum occupancy.

The replacement brick also had to blend into the existing wall sections without creating obvious patches across the façade. Mortar selection required similar attention because harder modern mixes can behave differently from older materials once installed.

When the museum expanded in 2016 with the addition known as the Switch House, brick remained at the center of the design.

Designed again by Herzog & de Meuron, the addition featured a perforated brick façade that references the original power station without copying it.

The addition incorporated more than 300,000 bricks arranged in a perforated pattern designed to filter natural light through portions of the façade.

Brick remained the dominant exterior material during the expansion, although the detailing shifted toward a more contemporary perforated façade system.

Digital modeling helped coordinate the geometry, but the finished façade still came down to field layout, alignment, joint consistency, and installation tolerances.

Even after the expansion, the complex still reads primarily as a masonry structure.

More than two decades after the museum opened, the original exterior walls still define the building visually.

The conversion completely changed the building’s use, but much of its exterior character remained intact.

Across major cities, former factories, warehouses, schools, and power plants are being converted into apartments, offices, museums, and mixed-use developments. Many of those structures were built with masonry systems that now require restoration instead of replacement.

Matching weathered mortar joints across large elevations, sourcing replacement brick that does not stand out, and tying modern building systems into older masonry walls are tasks that still depend heavily on experienced craftspeople.

Although the original power station and the newer expansion were constructed decades apart, both rely heavily on masonry as the primary exterior material. The addition references the original structure without duplicating it directly.

The project continues to surface in restoration discussions because many of the same challenges seen at the Tate Modern now appear regularly in adaptive reuse work across older industrial buildings.

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