Rotunda

Rotunda and visitors' rooms

Initially, the room that surrounds the rotunda on the top floor was known as the "Black and White Gallery" and showed reproductions and sketches from the museum's collections. Since 1928, this beautiful room, which had been locked to the general population and which contained the personnel department building, has been renovated and opened to the general population.

There is a 14 metre long lounge at the northern end of the room and a new winding staircase and a new elevator provide better accessibility to the new amenities on this area. This rotunda is the pivotal point in our perception of Tate Britain as a three-storey city. A new staircase in the middle of the room facilitates easy entry between the main and lower floors and also opens up powerful optical links between all floors of the rotunda.

There are two extra staircases on either side of the main room connecting all three floors, just as at the opening of the Tate in 1897. The rotunda was redesigned in terrazo as part of the interior of the new staircase, in a style reminiscent of the old style granite floors.

Rotunda's alcoves have once again become venues for the arts. At the lower floor, where the former coffee shop was situated, a room with the same layout as the main Rotunda was opened to create a spacious circular and orientational area at the Millbank end of the edifice.

Surrounded by arched ceilings and cladding, the vaulting and archways create a series of rooms that are sturdy and really open to the world. This new café is situated just eastwards of the lower rotunda. The arched room forms a contrast to the Rex Whistler restaurant and has immediate entrance to an outside area to the southern part of the build.