Tate Fashionable's Nook cafe revamped to be much less "Herzog & de Meuron-y"

Structure studio Holland Harvey has overhauled the ground-floor cafe on the Tate Fashionable in London so it doubles because the gallery’s first late-night bar.

Tucked away within the museum’s northwest nook, the inside of the Nook cafe was initially designed in 2000 when Herzog & de Meuron created a house for the UK’s nationwide assortment of recent artwork contained in the disused energy station on the Southbank.

Nook is a brand new cafe and bar on the Tate Moden

Since then, the Tate had made no modifications to the house till Holland Harvey was introduced on board to refresh the inside firstly of 2022.

“It was fairly a chilly house,” the studio’s co-founder Richard Holland instructed Dezeen. “All very Herzog & de Meuron-y.”

“They’re superb at what they do in so some ways,” he continued. “However this was not their greatest meals and beverage house.”

Bar of Tate Modern cafe surrounded by black bar stools — A gray stone bar types the centrepiece of the room

Holland Harvey stripped again lots of the cafe’s onerous, reflective finishes, sanding away the black gloss paint on the flooring to disclose the parquet beneath and eradicating the mirrored glass that Herzog & de Meuron had used to surround the constructing’s authentic riveted columns.

Fluorescent lights have been changed with extra muted spots by London studio There’s Gentle, whereas the dropped ceiling above the bar was rounded off and lined in foam insulation to melt the inside – each visually and acoustically.

In any other case, lots of the cafe’s core components together with the servicing in addition to the kitchen and bogs remained largely untouched to stop extreme waste and keep the integrity of the constructing.

“You do not actually wish to fiddle with the servicing as a result of 12 ft above your head is a Picasso,” Holland stated. “So it was fairly gentle contact.”

View of Corner cafe by Holland Harvey from Turbine Hall — The cafe backs onto the Tate’s Turbine Corridor. Picture by Edward Bishop

The largest intervention got here within the type of a newly added riverside entrance, permitting passersby to walk straight into Nook moderately than having to take the great distance by the gallery.

On the different finish of the open-plan room, a door leads immediately into Tate’s well-known Turbine Corridor, successfully linking it with the general public areas of the Southbank.

Seating area inside Corner cafe by Holland Harvey — Stone seating banquettes double as impromptu climbing frames

“The Turbine Corridor is among the most profitable public areas in London,” Holland stated. “It is one of many few indoor locations you’ll be able to go, the place folks fortunately sit down on the ground in the midst of the day.”

“And clearly, the Southbank is a tremendous public providing as nicely,” he continued. “So this felt like a possibility to attach the 2, which led a whole lot of the considering across the design.”

With the thought of extending the general public realm, lots of the newly added items are sturdy and glued in place, very like road furnishings. Amongst them are the double-sided Vicenza Stone banquettes, which may additionally function impromptu climbing frames for younger youngsters.

Holland Harvey created various different seating areas all through Nook to go well with completely different accessibility wants, with a deal with supporting native producers and small companies whereas decreasing waste wherever doable.

Nook’s lengthy sharing tables and benches have been made by marginalised younger folks from west London as a part of a carpentry apprenticeship programme run by social enterprise Goldfinger, utilizing bushes that have been felled by native authorities to cease the unfold of ash dieback.

“Each desk has the coordinates of the place the tree has felled on it, so there is a provenance to the furnishings,” Holland stated.

Seating area inside Tate Modern cafe and bar by Holland Harvey — The chairs have been taken from Tate’s personal storage and refinished

The chairs, in the meantime, have been salvaged from the gallery’s personal storage earlier than being refinished and reupholstered, whereas the smaller tables have been made by Brighton firm Spared utilizing waste espresso grounds from Tate’s different cafes.

These have been baked at a low temperature to take away any moisture earlier than being combined with oyster shells and a water-based gypsum binder.

Though the ensuing items aren’t totally round since they cannot be recycled, Holland hopes they inform a narrative concerning the worth that may be present in waste.

Table made from coffee grounds by Spared — Waste espresso grounds from the gallery’s different cafes have been become desk tops

“We’re under no circumstances saying that it is an exemplar undertaking in that sense,” he defined. “We have been simply looking for alternatives to inform tales by all of the completely different components moderately than simply going to the massive company suppliers.”

“And that is actually our wider impression: folks realising that there is a completely different technique to procure a desk. Think about if all of Tate’s furnishings shifting ahead is made by Goldfinger,” he continued.

High counters inside Corner cafe and bar at Tate Modern — The cafe additionally has excessive counter seating for distant working

Within the evenings, the house could be transitioned right into a bar and occasions house by switching to hotter, higher-contrast lighting, whereas a bit of the central banquette could be become a raised DJ sales space by urgent a button that’s hidden beneath the cushions.

“This place can get fairly wild within the night,” Holland stated.

Storage displays inside cafe and bar at Tate Modern by Holland Harvey — Timber cabinets are used to show merchandise

The final important modification to the Tate Fashionable constructing was Herzog & de Meuron’s Change Home extension, which opened to the general public in 2016.

The constructing incorporates a present store designed by Amsterdam studio UXUS, alongside varied galleries and a viewing stage on the highest flooring, which is at the moment closed to the general public after Tate misplaced a high-profile privateness lawsuit introduced by the inhabitants of a neighbouring residential tower.

The images is by Jack Hobhouse until in any other case acknowledged.