A £50m Government investment to transform Tate Modern was announced today by Culture Secretary James Purnell. It will create a spectacular new building, increasing the gallery's size by 60 per cent and allowing it to display far more of its permanent collection.

The funding is from DCMS's Comprehensive Spending Review Settlement. The new Gallery is expected to lead to an extra million visitors a year to Tate Modern, already the most popular museum of modern art in the world.

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Speaking at Tate Modern today, James Purnell said: "This is a really important moment for Tate, and for London. Herzog and de Meuron's astonishing design will create a stunning new landmark for the capital, and a brilliant space for showing the very best of international modern art to the world, free of charge.

"Tate Modern has been a runaway success with the public from the day it opened. I know that this new development, which we hope will be completed in time for 2012, will prove once and for all that London is the cultural capital of the world."

Tate Modern was created in the year 2000 to display the national collection of international modern art (defined as art since 1900). This forms part of the Tate Collection which is the national collection of British art since 1500 and international modern art. The international modern art was formerly displayed alongside the British art at what was previously the Tate Gallery and is now Tate Britain.

(GK/JM)