U.K. government donates $100M to Tate Modern expansion

An ambitious expansion of London's Tate Modern contemporary art gallery got a $100 million boost from government officials on Wednesday.

The British government has pledged 50 million (about $103 million) to the expansion to help keep the modern art venue world class, said James Purnell, the British secretary of state for culture, media and sport.

The seven-year-old museum, which resides in a converted power substation on the southern bank of the Thames in London, was originally designed to receive 1.8 million visitors a year. The museum has no admission fee.

According to gallery director Nicholas Serota, the Tate Modern now draws approximatelyfive million visitors annually surpassing both New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Pompidou Centre in Paris, thus allowing officials to dub it the world's most popular contemporary gallery.

Serota described the government's pledge as "an important endorsement of the contribution that the arts make to society as a whole and the importance of British art at an international level."

According to the British Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Tate pledge is the largest amount invested in a cultural project since the more than 500 million earmarked for the building of the British Library.

Award-winning Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron who designed the Tate Modern's original conversion have also been enlisted for the expansion project, which has a total budget of 215 million.

The City of London has donated 7 million to the project through its London Development Agency, while a philanthropist has donated 5 million.

Tate officials said the planwould target private industry for the remaining funds required.

Set to rise 11 storeys, the new wing's designhas been described as an irregular glass pyramid or ziggurat that will increase the museum's exhibition space by an additional 7,000 square metres.

Officials aim to begin construction in 2009, with completion in time for the London Olympics in 2012.