Building Tate Modern: Herzog & De Meuron

Rating:
Summary: A Testimony For a Humble International Modern Gallery
Review: If readers simply want to have a general overview of the making of Tate Modern Gallery, perhaps, this book is suffice. Should the readers be curious of cogs & wheels that create the Tate Modern machine, then, there's another superb book that shouldn't be missed. It is called "The Power of Art" written by Karl Sabbagh. Perhaps, these 2 books should be combined as a total reading experience so that there's nothing is amissed. The deficiency of "The Power of Art" is that it contains too few pictures but the shortcoming is succumbed by the author's inquisitive observations & countless interviews with all pertinent professionals, which were all recorded down in his confident but fluid writing style. I enjoyed every moment reading about the showdowns among architects (Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhas, Rafael Moneo, David Chipperfield during the competition stage) & subsequently, between Herzog & Norman Foster regarding linking the Millennium Bridge with the Tate Modern itself, showdowns between architects & engineers, headaches & traumas of completing the project on time & on budget, unforseen circumstances which were never expected in the scheduling, clashes of personalities, inner politicking, different mindset between professionals & builders, reality is different from the model set, comparisons between it & the Paul Getty Centre, & Bilbao Guggenheim, how the presentation was going to flow, the election of the new gallery director, the parody or mannerism of Herzog & de Meuron (the firm), the PR exercise conducted between the Gallery & its surrounding neighbours, the selection of a new landscape architect Kienast Vogt Partner, the professionals' obsession with toilets, & so forth. "Building Tate Modern" however, ignored the "tasty" bit by simply informed the readers briefly of every & each process. Pictures took precedent in this presentation & the quality was adequate. The index for the building plans, nevertheless, was too small for naked eyes. What "Building Tate Modern" exceeds Karl Sabbagh's book is mostly the allocation of one chapter to explain Bankside Power Station & its architect, Giles Gilbert Scott before it was finally converted. These 2 books are 2 different kettle of fish together & therefore, it's impossible to say which one precedes the other. Suffice to say that both publications tried to do justice to the Modern Gallery by presenting it in formats which authors & publishers deemed best. An experience not to be missed.

Rating:
Summary: A Testimony For a Humble International Modern Gallery
Review: If readers simply want to have a general overview of the making of Tate Modern Gallery, perhaps, this book is suffice. Should the readers be curious of cogs & wheels that create the Tate Modern machine, then, there's another superb book that shouldn't be missed. It is called "The Power of Art" written by Karl Sabbagh. Perhaps, these 2 books should be combined as a total reading experience so that there's nothing is amissed. The deficiency of "The Power of Art" is that it contains too few pictures but the shortcoming is succumbed by the author's inquisitive observations & countless interviews with all pertinent professionals, which were all recorded down in his confident but fluid writing style. I enjoyed every moment reading about the showdowns among architects (Tadao Ando, Renzo Piano, Herzog & de Meuron, Rem Koolhas, Rafael Moneo, David Chipperfield during the competition stage) & subsequently, between Herzog & Norman Foster regarding linking the Millennium Bridge with the Tate Modern itself, showdowns between architects & engineers, headaches & traumas of completing the project on time & on budget, unforseen circumstances which were never expected in the scheduling, clashes of personalities, inner politicking, different mindset between professionals & builders, reality is different from the model set, comparisons between it & the Paul Getty Centre, & Bilbao Guggenheim, how the presentation was going to flow, the election of the new gallery director, the parody or mannerism of Herzog & de Meuron (the firm), the PR exercise conducted between the Gallery & its surrounding neighbours, the selection of a new landscape architect Kienast Vogt Partner, the professionals' obsession with toilets, & so forth. "Building Tate Modern" however, ignored the "tasty" bit by simply informed the readers briefly of every & each process. Pictures took precedent in this presentation & the quality was adequate. The index for the building plans, nevertheless, was too small for naked eyes. What "Building Tate Modern" exceeds Karl Sabbagh's book is mostly the allocation of one chapter to explain Bankside Power Station & its architect, Giles Gilbert Scott before it was finally converted. These 2 books are 2 different kettle of fish together & therefore, it's impossible to say which one precedes the other. Suffice to say that both publications tried to do justice to the Modern Gallery by presenting it in formats which authors & publishers deemed best. An experience not to be missed.