Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is located in the former Bankside Power Station, in the Bankside area of the London Borough of Southwark. Tate Modern is one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary art in the world. As with the UK's other national galleries and museums, there is no admission charge for access to the collection displays, which take up the majority of the gallery space, whereas tickets must be purchased for the major temporary exhibitions. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the museum was closed for 173 days in 2020, and attendance plunged by 77 per cent to 1,432,991 in 2020. Nonetheless, the Tate was third in the list of most-visited art museums in the world in 2020, and the most visited in Britain. The nearest railway and London Underground station is Blackfriars, which is 0.5 km from the gallery. History Bankside Power Station Tate Modern is housed in the former Bankside Power Station, which was originally designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, the architect of Battersea Power Station, and built in two stages between 1947 and 1963. It is directly across the river from St Paul's Cathedral. The power station closed in 1981. Prior to redevelopment, the power station was a long, steel framed, brick clad building with a substantial central chimney standing . The structure was roughly divided into three main areas each running east–west – the huge main Turbine Hall in the centre, with the boiler house to the north and the switch house to the south. Initial redevelopment For many years after closure Bankside Power station was at risk of being demolished by developers. Many people campaigned for the building to be saved and put forward suggestions for possible new uses. An application to list the building was refused. In April 1994 the Tate Gallery announced that Bankside would be the home for the new Tate Modern. In July of the same year, an international competition was launched to select an architect for the new gallery. Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron of Herzog & de Meuron were announced as the winning architects in January 1995. The £134 million conversion to the Tate Modern started in June 1995 and