The Baltic Flour Mills first opened in 1950 at Gateshead as a working
mill on the banks of the Tyne. Fifty years later, at the beginning
of the new millenium, the same building is to reopen as 'a new
international centre for the contemporary visual arts'. Research had
shown that the UK lacked major facilities for showing comtemporary
art between Leeds and Edinburgh. An obvious comparison can be made
with the conversion of Battersea Power Station into 'Bankside', a
home for the Tate Gallery's collection of contemporary art on the
Thames. The computer generated images in this brochure show how the
Baltic Flour Mill conversion is expected to look and operate and are
a far cry from the images of the Crystal Palace printed in 1851.
Like the Great Exhibition the project has international ambitions.
