The galleries are housed in the former Bankside Power Station , which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott , the architect of Battersea Power Station , and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. The power station closed in 1981 . The building was converted by architects Herzog & de Meuron , after which it stood at 99m tall. The southern third of the building was retained by the French power company EDF Energy as an electrical substation (in 2006, the company released half of this holding){{cite news|url=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/arts/design/26tate.html|title=Tate Modern Announces Plans for an Annex|publisher=The New York Times |date=26 July , 2006 |accessdate=2006-07-26}}. Since the museum's opening on 12 May , 2000 , it has become a very popular destination for Londoner s and tourists . Entry to collection displays and some temporary exhibitions is free.

The permanent collection of Tate Modern is on display on levels three and five of the building, while level four houses large temporary exhibitions and a small exhibition space on level 2 houses work by contemporary artists. The Turbine Hall (level 1), which once housed the electricity generators of the old power station, is seven storeys tall with 3,400 square metres of floorspace{{cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1587112,00.html|title=Profile: Rachel Whiteread |work=Arts Unlimited|publisher=The Guardian |date=7 October , 2005 |accessdate=2006-04-20}}. It is used to display specially-commissioned work by contemporary artists, between October and March each year in a series sponsored by Unilever . This series was originally planned to last the gallery's first five years, but the popularity of the series has led to its extension until 2008.

When the gallery opened in 2000 the collections were not displayed in chronological order but were rather arranged thematically into four broad groups: History/Memory/Society; Nude/Action/Body; Landscape/Matter/Environment; and Still Life/Object/Real Life. This was ostensibly because a chronological survey of the story of modern art along the lines of the Museum of Modern Art in New York would expose the large gaps in the collections, the result of the Tate's conservative acquisitions policy for the first half of the 20th century. The first rehang at Tate Modern - opened in May 2006 - has eschewed the thematic groupings in favour of focusing on pivotal moments of twentieth-century art, and has been met with critical success.

The artists that have exhibited specially commissioned work in the turbine hall are:
     2000 — Louise Bourgeois — Maman, I Do, I Undo, I Redo
     2001 — Juan Muñoz — Double Bind
     2002 — Anish Kapoor — Marsyas
     2003 — Ólafur Elíasson — The Weather Project
     2004 — Bruce Nauman — Raw Materials
     2005 — Rachel Whiteread — Embankment

A popular approach to Tate Modern is via St Paul's Cathedral and the London Millennium Bridge . The closest tube station is Southwark , although Waterloo station or Blackfriars tube station and a short walk over Blackfriars Bridge is often more convenient.

There is also a riverboat pier just outside the gallery called Bankside Pier , with connections to the Docklands and Greenwich via regular passenger boat services (commuter service) and the Tate to Tate service, which connects Tate Modern with Tate Britain via the London Eye .

New Extension for 2012

A glass pyramid extension dedicated to photography and video on the south side of the building, also to be designed by Herzog & de Meuron, will increase the display space by 60%. This project will cost approx. £215 million and is scheduled to open in 2012. [ Tate Modern's chaotic pyramid ] , The Times , 26 July , 2006 . URL accessed on 26 July, 2006. The development is outlined at the subsite [ Transforming Tate Modern ] .

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