Tate Modern’s new Switch House extension in London has been greeted with acclaim. It is a building designed in the distorted geometry of neo-modernist cliché, and offers a breathtaking array of piazzas, shops and cafeteria, with the added attraction of a free panorama of London that is much better than the adjacent Shard’s. There has been criticism of the contents, which are more appropriate to an experimental Shoreditch warehouse than a national gallery of 20th-century art. But who cares? The Tate attracts almost five million visitors a year.
League tables now dictate how we judge London visitor attractions, just as exam results are used to evaluate schools and waiting times hospitals. Last year the British Museum drew 6.8 million visits, the National Gallery 5.9 million, the Tate Modern 4.7 million and the V&A 3.4 million. These figures cannot be compared with overseas museums because London does not charge while others do.
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