[2] The building was composed of two parallel brick façades running east to west, sandwiched between a foundation of concrete silos.

In 1976, a fire forced both mills to close, but the silos remained in operation until 1984 to store a portion of the grain owned by the European Economic Community.

[7] The opening of Baltic as a designated centre for contemporary art was part of the revitalisation and post-industrial regeneration of Gateshead's riverside.

[8] The regeneration began in the early 1990s and transformed the Quayside into a centre of modern architecture, including the Sage and Millennium Bridge.

[10] In 1994, Gateshead Council invited the Royal Institute of British Architects to hold a competition to select a design for the conversion of the Baltic Flour Mills.

The grain silos were removed, leaving the brick façades unsupported, and a 1,000 tonne steel frame was required to support the remaining building.

[14] With 13 separate levels in total, Williams claimed he purposefully wanted to create a sense of disorientation for visitors within the building and allow an element of discovery.

After almost six years, Nordgren left to take up a new post as founding director of the National Museum for Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway.

[27] He was brought to Baltic to increase visitor numbers and resolve the centre's financial situation, which was criticised by Arts Council England and an insider as being chaotic.

[24] He was awarded an honorary degree from Northumbria University in 2012 in recognition for his work on contemporary art after being on the judging panel for the Turner Prize.

[35] During the four-year construction of Baltic, the new organisation arranged a series of events, publications, and artists in residence in anticipation of the centre's opening.

[36] After ten years in the planning and a capital investment of £50m, including £33.4m from the Arts Council Lottery Fund, Baltic opened to the public at midnight on Saturday 13 July 2002.

[27] The novelty of opening the new building at midnight was intentional: founding director Sune Nordgren sought a dramatic gesture to herald the beginning of the new centre for arts.

[38] The inaugural exhibition, B.OPEN, had work by Chris Burden, Carsten Höller, Julian Opie, Jaume Plensa and Jane and Louise Wilson.

[39] Opie, who had previously assisted Dominic Williams with aspects of the building's conversion design,[40] contributed an installation consisting of nude outlines on the walls of floor of the gallery.

Entitled Klara and Edda belly-dancing features two naked young girls and had previously been exhibited around the world without objections.

[46] The installation, which had been scheduled for a four-month exhibition, opened with the remaining photographs whilst Klara and Edda belly-dancing was in possession of the police.

[47] Although this had a determinantal effect on Baltic's reputation in the short-term, Graham Whitham argues in Understand Contemporary Art that it may have given it a higher profile and greater publicity in the long-run.

[9] Cook enjoyed widespread recognition of her art towards the end of her life; the exhibition at Baltic took place one year before her death.

[50] Peter Doreshenko, the director of Baltic at the time of the exhibition, was keen for the gallery to reject the seriousness audiences may associate with it.

The exhibition of Cook's work was part of this populist effort to attract new audiences to the then financially-struggling gallery, whose visitor numbers had dropped to less than 500,000 and whose reputation was decreasing.

[51][52] Adrian Searle of The Guardian reviewed the exhibition and, whilst acknowledging that fans would enjoy it, commented "look too long and you may feel a bit queasy".

The exhibition included her abstract paintings, records of performance pieces, and began and ended with a four-metre tapestry which portrayed the creation the world from a woman's perspective.

"[37] In an October 2002 lecture at the Power Plant Gallery in Toronto, Nordgren reaffirmed the importance of local outreach and explained his intention for Baltic to regard the local history and culture, comparing his intention to examples of modern art museums where this was not considered, such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao (designed in Los Angeles and placed in Spain).

She argued that the visual arts can be used to further the economic and social growth of the area, even amidst the backdrop of political issues and austerity.

It was the first such competition in the UK to be judged entirely by artists: in 2017, they were Monica Bonvicini, Lorna Simpson, Pedro Cabrita Reis and Mike Nelson.

A designated gallery space, known as Baltic 39, was established on the top floor of refurbished Edwardian warehouses at 31-39 High Bridge in Newcastle.

takes the form of a lively programme exploring print culture and practice through talks and workshops with over 50 stalls selling zines and artists' books.