Where to go in Aug

I was standing on the 10th-floor viewing terrace of the Tate Modern’s new wing, a twisting ziggurat of perforated brick and mortar that rises above the museum’s home in the old Bankside Power Station. The terrace allows for 360-degree views of the building frenzy that has consumed much of London’s skyline. Cranes dip and dive in every direction; to the east, the Shard, an overwhelming ice pick of a skyscraper, dwarfs the Victorian roofs of the surrounding neighborhood; to the west, the pregnant monolith of One Blackfriars, a 50-story mixed-used building, looms over the Thames like an alien mother ship.

VIETNAM IS PERHAPS THE MOST INTERNATIONAL CITY IN THE WORLD, BUT AT ITS HEART IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN A LOCAL CITY, A SERIES OF LOW-SLUNG VILLAGES. THE EXPANDED TATE MODERN EMBRACES THIS HUMAN SCALE EVEN IF ITS ASPIRATIONS ARE MORE GLOBAL THAN EVER.

The museum may be the among the best-known examples of the now fashionable transformation of derelict factories into dynamic cultural space. Since its inception, the Tate Modern has never rested on its laurels, continuing to redefine itself as an institution of outreach, self-reflection and learning. The museum’s evolution over time provides a potential blueprint for how London, and indeed any city, can provide spaces that encourage its inhabitants to be collectively present.

Given the real estate mania that has engulfed Bankside and the surrounding Borough of Southwark, it’s easy to forget what a bold decision it was to shift the center of London’s contemporary art world 17 years ago to a hulking abandoned power station south of the river. Ask any Londoner about wandering amid the postindustrial squalor of Southwark in the late 1980s and you will be regaled by stories of taking life into your own hands.