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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.”

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.

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: