Moon Bar, Tate Modern

Tate Modern has unveiled its latest addition, Corner, an all-day café and bar located on a picturesque riverside terrace. This unique venue marks a significant milestone as it is the first time Tate Modern offers visitors a place for an evening drink by the riverside. Corner aims to bridge the gap between art and gastronomy, offering a diverse program of events catering to all visitors, from families enjoying a day out to friends meeting for after-work drinks, local Londoners, and overseas tourists alike.

Sustainability and the circular economy were central to Corner’s design. Collaborating with design firm Holland Harvey, the space underwent a transformative process, opening up the area and integrating bespoke furniture from Goldfinger and innovative tabletops created by Spared, which ingeniously reused Tate Coffee grounds.

The lighting design was crafted by the visionary minds at There’s Light, a renowned company known for its innovative and creative approaches to illuminating spaces. The lighting at Corner is a defining element, seamlessly transitioning the venue from a vibrant daytime café to an enchanting nighttime bar. Guests can experience an ambiance that artfully complements the surrounding installations, adding a touch of magic to the riverside experience.

 

Fabio Cristini, Creative Director at the studio, explains that the decision to take on the lighting design project was driven by the profound association of the Tate with art and its global recognition as a monumental architectural landmark. This prestigious status, he says, combined with its appeal to design enthusiasts and architects worldwide, ignited tremendous excitement and enthusiasm within the There’s Light studio when they were chosen as the lighting designers for the new venue.

Understanding the client’s vision for the space, explains Darran Prior, Project Lead at There’s Light, led them to recognize that this project needed to serve a dual purpose. Their primary challenge was to craft an adaptable lighting scheme that could cater to the café’s operational requirements while seamlessly transforming from a vibrant, family-friendly daytime destination for diverse Tate visitors into a warm and intimate evening space for patrons seeking a riverside drink experience after the gallery’s closing hours.

“We began conceptually by aligning our thinking with that of the architects who wished to design this space as an extension of the public realm, and thus every element of the project needed to be inclusive, functional, and beautiful, principles which ultimately drove our decision making throughout the process,” says Darran.

“To bring an additional layer to the lighting scheme, we designed bespoke decorative fixtures that were intended to be uniquely Tate rather than a standard off-the-shelf product. They were manufactured by the talented artisan Georgios Pitsillides from his family-run workshop in Cyprus and took inspiration from utilitarian brutalist 1970s streetlights. These can be seen framing the curved bar, along the high-level window seating, and fixed from the ceilings as feature pendants illuminating the perimeter bulkhead looking onto St Paul’s Cathedral on the other side of the river.”

Adaptable lighting solutions for day-to-night transition.

The transition from a daytime café to a nighttime bar required adaptable lighting solutions. These solutions had to not only address the technical aspects of the lighting design but also be customized to meet the ongoing dynamic needs of the space.

“To help reduce the adjustment period of our visual system when entering from bright outdoor conditions to an internally artificially lit space, we utilized various design techniques to improve the perception of brightness during daylight hours. This included applying a neutral matt finish to all exposed services to help reflect the LED linear uplight located on the cable trays and reduce the contrast ratio by mitigating strong shadowing.”

“The LED linear uplights were also specified with a much cooler color temperature than other fixtures in the space to help mimic the cool reflected daylight we are accustomed to from the outdoors. This extensive use of cool indirect light during the day also reduces shadowing below, amplifying the effect of ambient light and increasing the perception of brightness further,” Fabio explains.

“As the space transitions into a nighttime bar, the intensity of the reflected light from the cable trays drops and direct accent light with warmer color temperatures increases from integrated sources in joinery and focused directional light onto artwork, plants, and furniture. The shift in focus from a brightly lit open space to a more dispersed yet controlled direction of light directly contributes to the intimate setting in the evening. This is achieved by directing light to specific areas only and favoring warmer color temperatures to alter the appearance of materials and reinforce the feeling of a cozy, intimate environment.”

Artistic and Culinary Lighting Integration

There’s Light cleverly incorporated their lighting design, seamlessly melding it with the artistic installations and the overarching concept of the venue, infusing a cinematic touch into the experience. Fabio elaborates:

“We worked closely with the architects on their conceptual vision for the space and took further inspiration from the monumentality of the Tate Modern itself as well as from the urban realm surrounding it – both large in scale and functional for a diverse range of people’s needs.”

“We drew much of our visual inspiration from artistic movies such as Blade Runner, with its strong contrasting scenes and overly saturated color and warmth. This can be seen through our implementation of directional light and low-level integrated light within the plinths to ground an artistic concept and vision on a human scale.”

“In the design of the bespoke decorative fixtures, we took inspiration from utilitarian brutalist 1970s streetlights, building on our intention to create and deliver a decorative language unique to Tate and the Corner bar. In addition, we ensured equal attention was given to the quality of light throughout the space, not just the obvious aesthetic appearance of the light fixtures. This focus deliberately maximizes the vibrancy of not just the artwork but also the culinary display, connecting food, drink, and art through light.”

Casambi’s Contribution to a Sustainable and Smart Setup

The lighting installation at Corner is controlled using Casambi’s wireless solution. Casambi Bluetooth Units were integrated with the fixtures to enable centralized configuration and control of all lighting from a single platform, the Casambi App. This allowed the team to implement the lighting concept successfully and provide the ability to customize scenes for the venue.

“The Casambi control was paramount to the success of implementing the lighting concept, allowing us to create scenes for daytime and night which set apart the different services at Corner, fulfilling an essential part of the brief. The wide range of control units meant that we could tailor solutions to each specification, based on how we envisioned zoning without impacting the electrical cabling installation. On that note, it made the installation process more streamlined, reducing cabling and ultimately resources, from materials to time regarding commissioning

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