Whitechapel Gallery, Art museum in Whitechapel, United Kingdom.
Whitechapel Gallery is a contemporary art museum in East London with a white Art Nouveau facade and two connected buildings. Exhibition rooms spread across multiple floors with skylights and high walls displaying rotating works by international artists.
The museum opened its doors in 1901 with the aim of bringing art into a working-class neighborhood. The rooms showed pioneering exhibitions of modern painting and sculpture from Europe and America in the following decades.
The gallery sees itself as an educational institution with weekly free guided tours through current exhibitions. The ground floor houses a bookshop featuring artist publications and a café where visitors pause between exhibition rooms.
The museum remains closed on Mondays and opens on other days mostly in late morning. Access to the building is level from the street with all floors reachable by lift.
The original building received its characteristic facade from architect Charles Harrison Townsend, who also designed the Horniman Museum. The 2009 extension deliberately integrated into the historic structure without imitating it.
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