Archinect - News

Tate Modern resolves viewing platform privacy dispute with Neo Bankside residents

2023-10-23T13:48:00-04:00

The Tate Modern in London has announced its compliance with the UK High Court’s February ruling regarding a privacy case that involved its 10th-floor viewing gallery and five residents of the adjacent Neo Bankside apartments.

The museum will now restrict visitors' access to the platform, which was constructed in 2016 as part of a Herzog & de Meuron-led $318 million Blavatnik Building expansion. The remedy will help the Tate avoid paying any monetary damages, as was the will of the plaintiffs. Their decision puts an end to a saga that has touched on Inner London’s class conflicts over housing and could potentially carry future ramifications in regards to design and the public realm, according to Guardian critic Oliver Wainwright and other observers.

Natasha Rees, a senior partner at the law firm Forsters, which represented the five Neo Bankside residents, said: “An award of damages was never our clients’ aim and they are grateful for the Tate’s recent willingness, instead, to agree t...

UK Supreme Court rules in favor of residents in Tate Modern viewing platform case

2023-02-02T17:04:00-05:00

The owners of luxury flats opposite Tate Modern’s viewing gallery face an unacceptable level of intrusion that prevents them enjoying their homes, the supreme court has ruled. In a majority judgment, the court determined that the flat owners faced a “constant visual intrusion” that interfered with the “ordinary use and enjoyment” of their properties, extending the law of privacy to include overlooking – albeit only in extreme cases.

The suit was initiated by a quintet of residents of the RSHP-designed apartment tower in 2017, offering Oliver Wainwright (another) chance to comment on the class tensions which lie at the heart of many high-profile Greater London housing kerfuffles. It was later dismissed by a lower court judge before heading to the UK’s Supreme Court in August 2021. This week’s ruling did not however provide a remedy to fix the headaches caused by the 2016 Herzog & de Meuron extension with either a partition or any other kind of privacy shield.

Some speculate that the court’s decision may preface a torrent of pro-tenant privacy cases. In issuing his opinion, Justice George Leggatt wrote: “It is not difficult to imagine how oppressive living in such circumstances would feel for any ordinary person — much like being on display in a zoo.”

Tate Modern unveils a visual feast for the Great British Bake Off

2021-11-24T19:19:00-05:00

The Tate apparently showed off a gingerbread model for the finale of the Great British Bake Off. This year’s winning entry for the BBC Channel 4 competition was an oversized remake of the Mad Hatter’s tea party from one-time architecture critic Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

The edible museum model was produced by food artists Caitlin Levin and Henry Hargreaves. The duo originally prepared several models of different museums like the MAXXI and Guggenheim for the 2013 edition of Miami Art Basel they said are inspired by each building’s unique form.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tate (@tate)

“We wanted to really focus on architecturally heavy galleries. Ones that were a mixture of the iconic and ones that people might not know, because a lot of it’s about learning and playing," Hargreaves said at the time. "Once we figured which galleries we wanted to do, we focused on certain angles and great shots and then we’d make a foamcore model of the gal...

The Tate Modern is hosting a vaccination clinic as the UK begins its reopening

2021-07-14T03:00:00-04:00

The Tate Modern will turn into a mass walk-in Covid-19 vaccination centre this Friday night, offering first and second Pfizer jabs to anyone over 18. The iconic venue will be hosting the pop-up vaccine site in its Turbine Hall, offering Londoners exclusive access to galleries for the night and a unique setting to get protected against Covid.

Vaccination rates in London have fallen recently. All four Tate galleries have been fully reopened since May following a 14-month partial closure that reduced overall visitorship by 80%. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced the reopening of the country on July 19th despite pushback from some critics pointing to variant-fueled infection rates as cause for concern.

An in-depth feature by CityLab recently highlighted the complications of adapting large-scale architecture like the Tate into infrastructure for vaccination sites against a once-in-a-century pandemic like COVID-19. Other civic institutions in the US and Canada have been volunteering their services significantly throughout the past year.

Time Out London has more on the vaccination drive here.

Privacy lawsuit against Tate Modern's viewing platform goes to Supreme Court

2021-04-27T15:32:00-04:00

Residents of a luxury development on London’s South Bank who lost a legal battle to close part of the tenth-floor viewing platform at Tate Modern are now taking their case to the UK Supreme Court. Owners of four flats in the Neo Bankside block located alongside the gallery, previously claimed in court that “hundreds of thousands of visitors” to Tate Modern were looking into their homes from the viewing space located in its Blavatnik building.

After losing their legal case to close parts of the public viewing terrace at the neighboring Tate Modern extension, some residents of the luxurious Neo Bankside glass condo development in London are now taking their fight to the UK's Supreme Court, reports The Art Newspaper.

Previously on Archinect: Glass tower residents lose 'invasion of privacy' case against Tate Modern

Glass tower residents lose 'invasion of privacy' case against Tate Modern

2019-02-12T13:42:00-05:00

Residents of flats overlooked by the Tate Modern have lost their high court bid to stop “hundreds of thousands of visitors” looking into their homes from the art gallery’s viewing platform. [...] the board of trustees of the Tate Gallery said the platform provided “a unique, free, 360-degree view of London” and argue that the claimants could simply “draw the blinds”.

The judge presiding over the highly publicized case dismissed the residents' demands that parts of the 10th-floor public viewing terrace in the Tate Modern's Herzog & de Meuron-designed extension be closed off to prevent visitors from peeking through the floor-to-ceiling windows into the ritzy Neo Bankside apartments (planned by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners) next door.

Those who live in glass houses should have a sense of humor. Photo: zoer/Flickr

Recognizing the fact that the residents were “occupying a particularly sensitive property which they are operating in a way which has increased the sensitivity,” the judge recommended net curtains as a reasonable privacy solution.

Herzog & de Meuron received reduced fee for Tate Modern extension

2017-08-15T14:37:00-04:00

Herzog & de Meuron, the Swiss architecture firm behind the ambitious Tate Modern extension, took a reduced fee for work on the building project after costs went £45m over budget. According to documents obtained by the Architect’s Journal under the Freedom of Information act, Herzog & de Meuron was asked not to take its full fee for extra work on the 10-storey building, which went from costing £215m in 2012 to £260m in 2015.

The Art Newspaper cites the minutes from a 2015 Tate board of trustees meeting: "Conversation at a senior level indicates that [Herzog & de Meuron] will look sympathetically on this position, but that costs have already been incurred to a certain level, which will require some recompense, allowed for in the figures budgeted."

As published minutes reveal, some of the construction firms were also being named for unsatisfactory performance, notably window & facade contractors Seele and Loveld.

Will luxury apartment owners shut down the Tate's viewing platform?

2017-04-25T13:55:00-04:00

Good walls make good neighbours – but not, it seems, when they are made entirely of glass. Five residents of the multi-million-pound Neo Bankside towers, which loom behind Tate Modern like a crystalline bar chart of inflated land values, have filed a legal claim against the museum to have part of its viewing platform shut down. They claim that its 10th-floor public terrace has put their homes into a state of “near constant surveillance”.

In an apparent case of art interfering with life, the owners of the apartments next to the Tate Modern's viewing platform are trying to legally erect some kind of visual barrier between them and the visitors of the museum (although the exotic technology of curtains has apparently not yet made it to the U.K.). This attempt at transforming the viewing platform into just a platform is raising ire for several good reasons, chiefly because it places the comfort of a few above the aesthetic pleasure of potentially millions. On the plus side, it has also caused Oliver Wainwright to write a highly enjoyable piece delving into barely restrained class tension and London's swollen luxury real estate market.

Superflex to take over the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern

2017-03-21T12:32:00-04:00

Each year, the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern in London houses a site-specific work designed specially for the massive space. This year, the Danish collective Superflex will install a work, the details of which are under wraps until October 3.

Founded in 1993 by the artists Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Nielsen, Superflex are known for their participatory and engaging installation work. The group describes their work as Tools, or proposals that invite audiences to join in experimental models intended to alter economic production conditions and engage in democratic processes.

“Their work raises timely questions about the role of the artist in contemporary society, exploring how we interpret and engage with the increasingly complex world around us,” states Frances Morris, director of the Tate Modern. “I can’t wait to see how they tackle these themes within the unique scale and public context of Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall.”

The genesis of Tate Modern

2016-06-21T12:06:00-04:00

When we first visited Bankside Power Station for the original Tate Modern competition in 1994, it seemed like the castle in Sleeping Beauty – an enormous urban mountain that was completely overgrown, surrounded by barbed wire and prickly roses, as if protecting the hidden beauty inside. It seemed dangerous. It is totally unimaginable now, but this was a huge chunk of the city that was totally excluded from public life, set back behind high walls.

A look around the new Tate Modern extension

2016-06-20T09:56:00-04:00

The original Tate Modern redevelopment was started in 1995 and since opening in 2000 has become the most popular gallery in the world. It made sense then for Herzog and De Meuron to return and finish the job. Their architectural evolution and legacy is now embedded in the London skyline, as is their success.

The synergy between the buildings, old and new, is remarkable and assisted satisfyingly by the graphic identity from British designer Peter Saville. The space is incredibly successful as an art gallery but also as an architectural performance; there are continuous structural accents inviting you to explore the sensuality of the space. From the inside the lattice brickwork is a welcome and original delight that insists on further inspection and accordingly reveals disguised benches bracketed into the window, ostensibly waiting for you all along. It is easy to navigate your way through the building but also extremely satisfying to get lost in it.

Offering almost certainly one of t...

"We can't sneer at developers": Herzog & de Meuron examine London's future

2016-06-16T12:35:00-04:00

In London, though the Tate is now finished, there is other work to be done... "We can’t sneer at developers," says Herzog. "They are the ones who will increasingly dominate the shaping of our cities. But we should try to convince them to add accessibility for everyone. To ask, can we do it better?"

Now that they've completed the Tate Modern extension, what's next for Herzog & de Meuron? In this piece, trilingual biking-afocidionado Jacques Herzog speculates on the architectural future of London, and his firm's potential (developer-positive) role in it.

Herzog & de Meuron, in the news:

First look inside Tate Modern's new Extension

2016-05-23T12:11:00-04:00

Set to open on 17 June, the Tate Modern Switch House – named after the part of the power station that the new galleries occupy – expands the museum by 60% to accommodate the surging numbers of visitors, which reached 5.7 million last year, well over double the number the building was designed to cope with when it opened in 2000. But the arresting brick ziggurat is also a physical symbol of the effect the Tate has had on its surroundings.

Herzog and de Meuron in conversation with Rowan Moore

2016-05-17T14:36:00-04:00

As Herzog explains, piling some refined Swiss biscuits on the table in front of him to illustrate his point, an earlier design envisaged stacked-up glass cubes, but the material was too similar to the developers’ stuff. “We realised that in order to survive we have to strengthen it,” he says [..] Yet the precedent of the original Tate Modern – also severe on the outside, lively inside – shows that a building doesn’t have to gurn and wheedle to be popular.

"In this and other works, Herzog and De Meuron like to present a protestant moment of denial before pleasure, to forbid before welcoming, to be severe before generous. It is part of their worldview, different from most architects’, in which delight and beauty co-exist with more troubling or mysterious aspects of existence."

In related news:

Artist Carsten Höller to install massive slides on London's Hayward Gallery

2015-04-13T15:32:00-04:00

Now visitors will be able to descend from the Hayward gallery’s glass pyramid ceiling to its entrance level on one of two 15-metre slides commissioned for an exhibition opening later this year. Built into the gallery’s exterior wall, the slides will “constitute a graceful sculptural installation” while also being a device for “experiencing an emotional state that is a unique condition somewhere between delight and madness”, [Carsten Höller] said.

Previously, Höller had created a similar installation for the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in 2006. The slides were very popular with the public, although also responsible for several injuries.

For his upcoming exhibit at the Hayward Gallery, Höller has also created "Flying Machines," which are intended to give visitors the sensation of flying over Waterloo Bridge. Additionally, the exhibit, entitled "Carsten Höller: Decision," will include two robotic beds that “mirror each other’s movements as they roam the galleries."

Höller is known for provocative, often-interactive installations. His piece "Pill Clock" comprises a ceiling-mounted clock that drops more than 1 million white pills while the exhibit is up, with visitors allowed to take and consume the pills. Höller came to prominence concurrently with artists like Philippe Parreno, Pierre Huyghe, Andrea Zittel and Rirkrit Tiravanija, whose work displays a shared interest in provoking unexpected and novel interactions between the art w...

The fascinating world of Grimm City

2015-04-01T21:01:00-04:00

Later this summer, London's Flea Folly Architects—Pascal Bronner & Thomas Hillier—will be running a workshop in what they broadly call "narrative architecture" at the Tate Modern. "What would a town inhabited by Salvador Dali, Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder and Man Ray look like?" they ask. [...] Their own project, Grimm City, is perhaps an example of what might result.

Editor's Picks #387

2014-10-02T12:29:00-04:00

For the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect talked with Adora Lo, Architect turned Pro LEGO Builder.

They discussed the "challenge of keeping it LEGO legal" and the satisfaction of designing a "Star Wars building in LEGO". midlander was impressed "That Boston model...The Lego version of 111 Huntington is nicer than the real one!"

Plus, Amelia Taylor-Hochberg shared the debut issue of ‘LOBBY ’, The Bartlett School of Architecture ’s new architecture magazine, for Screen/Print #25.

News
The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) announced that it will be making significant changes to its Intern Development Program (IDP). Separate from other considerations to change the IDP's terminology, this decision chiefly includes two phases: (1) the removal of "elective" hourly requirements, and (2) condensing IDP's experience areas from the current 17 into six "practice-based categories".

The general consensus seemed to be underwhelmed - midlander quipped "So......

Rothko painting potentially Yellowed

2012-10-07T19:56:00-04:00

"I am a naturally peaceful person, but I wouldn't be that upset if 'Vladimir' accidentally met with a baseball bat," - an art lover @twitter

The Guardian reported "A man has defaced a multimillion-pound Mark Rothko mural hanging in the Tate Modern gallery in front of onlookers. A police investigation is now under way into the vandalism of the US artist's work.

The graffiti on the painting appears to read "a potential piece of yellowism." According to an online manifesto, Yellowism is an artistic movement run by two people named Vladimir Umanets and Marcin Lodyga."

A related discussion on graffiti and tagging on Archinect "Graffiti Culture Thesis"

The Slippery Slope at Tate Modern

2006-10-08T21:39:00-04:00

Making a piece that works in Tate Modern's vast turbine hall is far from child's play - Carsten Holler has responded to the challenge by turning the space into a giant playground. The artist tells Lynn Barber why riding his huge, curving, steel slides will change our perceptions and set us free. Observer, installation pics.