"Tate Modern unveils £215 million ziggurat extension". Times Online July 25, 2006

Tate Modern unveils £215 million ziggurat extension
By Jenny Percival and agencies

The futuristic new building on the South Bank of the Thames will be made up of a series of glass boxes stacked on top of each other to form a ziggurat - a structure that dates back to the temples of ancient Mesopatamia and Babylon. Ziggurats were considered to be homes to the Gods rather than places of worship.
Nicholas Serota, the Tate Modern director, said the 60 per cent extra exhibition space provided by the extension would allow the gallery to put on a wider range of exhibits and make it easier to cope with an increase in visitor numbers.
When it was built six yeas ago it was expected to receive 1.8 million visitors a year but now it gets more than double that number - 4 million a year - and is especially crowded at weekends and during school holidays.
The Museum of Modern Art in New York receives 2.7 million visitors a year and the Pompidou Centre in Paris 2.5 million.
The original Bankside Power Station was converted into a modern art museum by Swiss-based architects Herzog & de Meuron.
The same design team will build the extension to the south of the gallery on a site currently used as an electricity sub-station. The company which owns the sub-station, EDF Energy Networks, is modernising its equipment, allowing the Tate to expand.
At 70 metres (230 ft) and ten-storeys high it will rise above the existing building and some critics have suggested that it may spoil the view of the Tate from the north.
Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, announced today that the London Development Agency was giving a £7 million grant towards the cost but most of the cash has yet to be found from other public sources such as the Lottery as well as private companies.
The gallery will put in a planning application this autumn and is hoping that the extension will be ready in time for the 2012 Olympic games.
Mr Serota said: "I am confident we can raise the money, we have done it before. And I am confident that if we raise the money in good time, we can deliver this building by 2012, at a time when the eyes of the world will be on London."
The development includes 10 new galleries, two new performance areas, two public plazas and a roof terrace with views across London.
It will also open up a north-south street through the building, creating a pedestrian walk from St Paul's Cathedral, across the Millennium Bridge, through the Turbine Hall of the Tate and down to the Elephant and Castle area of south London.