Bankside
Tate Modern is situated on Bankside, an area on the south bank of the River Thames, opposite St Paul's Cathedral, 10 minutes walk from London Bridge. Bankside lies within Southwark, originally an ancient settlement which sprang up around the south end of the first London Bridge, built by the Romans shortly after their arrival in Britain in AD43.
Medieval palaces once lined the banks of this stretch of the River Thames, the rich and famous choosing it as the place to display their accumulated wealth. Bankside also became the residence for the Bishop of Winchester. Later, and over centuries, the locality drew to itself less orthodox activities. By the end of the sixteenth century Southwark had become London's chief pleasure ground, noted for gambling, bearbaiting, brothels, and above all its theatres: Shakespeare's Globe opened its doors on Bankside in 1598.
Henry VIII closed the brothels down (though they were open again by the seventeenth century) and many of the prelates' houses fell during the Reformation. The theatres were closed by the Puritans who won the English Civil War and much of the remaining palatial opulence was destroyed.
From the mid eighteenth century Bankside became increasingly active in trade, commerce and industry. By the later nineteenth century there was a gas works, an iron foundry, glass making, a coconut fibre works, a boiler works, a vinegar distillery, breweries; wharves lined the river; and 90,000 people were crammed into the Bankside ward alone. From being the location of spacious palaces of the powerful and pretentious, the area was now one of poverty, tightly packed with alleyways, factories and slums.
From the early twentieth century urban deindustrialisation brought decline, including heavy bombing in the Second World War. After the war, the new Bankside Power Station was constructed. Standing directly opposite St Paul's it was conceived by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott as a new kind of cathedral, a cathedral of pure energy. Inevitably technological change meant that the power station and much of the surrounding area gradually slipped into obsolescence. Bankside soon became just another hidden area cut off from the London mainstream.
In the late 1980s Southwark Council began to work realising Bankside's true potential. It drew up a regeneration strategy aimed at improving the accessibility of the area and its immediate environment as well as pulling investment into the area. The redevelopment of the redundant Bankside Power Station was seen as key to the regeneration of the area.
The conversion of Bankside Power Station into Tate Modern will play an important role in the redevelopment of the area south of the River Thames, so that Bankside, one of the capital's oldest districts, will once again become a vibrant area and provide a new cultural focus for London.