Watch This Space - It's the New Canvas for Our City's Next Art Boom; Crowd-Puller: Once a Disused Power Station, Tate Modern Art Gallery Is Now a Cultural Landmark and Tourist Attraction

Byline: ROWAN MOORE

AS THE last Woolworths closes, and as the last cutprice CD and cheap plastic toy leave its grey metal shelves, this may not be an obvious time to look on the bright side.

And as Marks & Spencer closes 27 stores, and Next considers a sales drop of "only" seven per cent a triumph, it might seem eccentric to proclaim an opportunity for the future development of London.

Yet a bright side there is. The shrinkage of high street shopping probably, thanks to the internet, never to return in the same way brings back something London has recently lacked, and once had in abundance and to its great benefit. This is what could be called slack space: spare, hard-to-let property that allows creative and ingenious people to experiment and set up new businesses. It is the fallow land of a city, allowing it to renew itself.

In the Seventies London had slack space many times the area of all the lost Woolies put together, …

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com
Publication information: Article title: Watch This Space - It's the New Canvas for Our City's Next Art Boom; Crowd-Puller: Once a Disused Power Station, Tate Modern Art Gallery Is Now a Cultural Landmark and Tourist Attraction. Contributors: Not available. Newspaper title: The Evening Standard (London, England). Publication date: January 9, 2009. Page number: 15. © Not available. COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale Group.

This material is protected by copyright and, with the exception of fair use, may not be further copied, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means.