Holland Harvey / Corner, Tate Modern, London
The Tate Modern’s Corner provides visitors with a place to eat and drink that spans both day-time and night-time activities
Words By Emily Martin
Images By Jack Hobhouse
PROJECT INFO
Client: Tate Enterprises
Interior design: Holland Harvey www.hollandharvey.com
Completion: July 2023
Size: 560 sq m
LAST SUMMER, the Tate Modern unveiled Corner, a new all-day café and bar, which opens onto an outdoor summer terrace, offering visitors – for the first time – a place for an evening drink on the riverside at the world famous museum.
Designed by architecture practice Holland Harvey, the space has been stripped back and opened. In planning the space, the circular economy was at the heart of the discussions, with bespoke furniture from Goldfinger and tabletops created by Spared, reusing Tate coffee grounds. Lighting design, by There’s Light, helps define different spaces and mark the transition from day-time café to night-time bar. Nathan Coley’s illuminated sculpture, ‘We Must Cultivate Our Garden’, is installed on the lawn outside Tate Modern, bringing art into the public realm and connects the gallery to the landscape via a new entrance into the Corner.
Customers can sit inside, on the terraced area, or alternatively spill out onto the lawn beyond
Jonathan Harvey, co-founding director, Holland Harvey, comments: ‘Tate Eats and Holland Harvey worked closely over the past 18 months to deliver Corner. Conceived as an extension of the public realm, the design seeks to be inclusive, functional and beautiful – welcoming and accessible to all.’
Corner is designed as a place for food, drink and congregation. The bar, retail and coffee counter are the focus and are accommodated in geometric forms that echo the monumental structures of the original power station. The animation and excitement of a busy, open kitchen offer an opportunity for Tate Eats to showcase and celebrate the provenance of the food. From the start, Holland Harvey aimed to create an informal, playful setting from morning until night.
Corner enjoys its own entrance next to the world-famous gallery
Tactile, robust materials that exude warmth and softness have been chosen to complement the harder surfaces for which the building is known. Material choices explore themes of the circular economy, decarbonisation and social impact.
By providing a place to eat and drink adjacent and connected to the Tate Modern, the designers sought to bring art to the public space while bringing people together to congregate
Collaborating with Holland Harvey to create the new furniture is Goldfinger, an award winning social enterprise and design studio. It created a range of tables, benches and stools, which champion bold, contemporary design and purity of form, crafted by hand in the studio’s workshop at the foot of the Trellick Tower in West London. The pieces are made from local felled trees, including ash trees felled in Odiham to control the spread of ash dieback, celebrating circular design, and showcasing the beauty of Britain’s native timbers. Each piece of furniture bears the GPS coordinates of where the original trees once stood.
By providing a place to eat and drink adjacent and connected to the Tate Modern, the designers sought to bring art to the public space while bringing people together to congregate
Making tabletops and cake stands from Tate Eats coffee waste is Brighton-based Spared, a project championing a negativewaste model, supporting a notion: ‘There is no such thing as waste, only potential’. The team worked closely with Holland Harvey and Tate Eats throughout the sampling process to create unique colour combinations. Tate Eats sent coffee waste to the Brighton workshop and Spared started the process by baking the coffee at a low temperature to remove all the moisture before mixing it with shellfish waste and a mineral eco binder. Once the tabletops were completed, they were sent to Goldfinger who made beautiful trims from felled wood.
By providing a place to eat and drink adjacent and connected to the Tate Modern, the designers sought to bring art to the public space while bringing people together to congregate
Setting the ambience by delivering an adaptable lighting scheme that felt warm and inviting, There’s Light designed the bespoke decorative lighting taking great inspiration from utilitarian brutalist 1970s streetlights. Challenged to deliver this scheme for use by the Tate’s wide-ranging visitors, the design team opted for a design which showcased a clear change in ambience, such as using higher contrast and warmth defining for the cocktail bar.
As well as providing for more large gatherings, Corner has not neglected more intimate seating for smaller parties of people
Fabio A P Cristini, creative director at There’s Light, explains: ‘We started off working on the concept together with the architects, by taking inspiration from the monumentality of Tate Modern itself and from the urban realm, large in scale, functional, also looking at movies like Blade Runner, with strong contrasting scenes using directional light and saturated warm colour, all taken with a view to bringing them in to a domestic scale.’
Circular economy principles have been incorporated throughout, including by using recycled coffee grounds as raw material for some of the tables
For over 20 years, Tate Modern has been a leading London landmark and international destination. It is one of the UK’s most visited attractions, welcoming five million visitors each year and is free and open to all. Corner has been designed as a democratic and communal space for everyone to enjoy, whether visiting as a destination in its own right, or a place to chat and unwind after visiting the gallery.
Circular economy principles have been incorporated throughout, including by using recycled coffee grounds as raw material for some of the tables
Key Suppliers
Furniture
Goldfinger www.goldfinger.design
Spared www.spared.eco
Lighting design
There’s Light www.thereslight.com
Sculpture
Nathan Coley www.studionathancoley.com
