A solution has been found to guarantee the peace of mind for residents of the towers neighboring the Tate Modern, after six years of legal proceedings. The museum finally reopened the panoramic terrace but limited it to three facades, closed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The residents of the neighborhood did not imagine, when they bought their luxurious apartments built in 2013, that three years later they would find photographs of their living room posted on tourists’ Instagram accounts. Because in 2016, the Tate inaugurated the Blavatnik Building, a 21,000 square meter extension including the 10th floor terrace which opens directly onto these apartments and welcomes up to 600,000 visitors each year. Feeling constantly spied on and photographed, the owners first tried to negotiate an amicable solution with the institution, which was content to place signs asking for “respect the privacy of the neighborhood”. Measures deemed insufficient which in 2017 led five owners to take the museum to court to close part of the terrace.
The terrace of the Tate Modern extension facing one of the 4 glass towers of the Neo Bankside real estate complex.
© Photo Ludovic Sanejouand, 2016
In a first judgment favorable to the museum in 2019, confirmed in 2020 by the Court of Appeal, British justice considered that the Tate Modern did not break the rules in a large city where vis-à-vis people are frequent. But the Supreme Court finally ruled in favor of the residents in 2023 (by 3 judges for and 2 against), delegating to a lower court the task of finding an appropriate solution. Judge George Leggatt found that the plaintiffs lived as “in a zoo “, “under constant observation “.
In 2019, a British teenager suffering from mental illness threw a young French child over the railing.
View from the Tate Modern terrace of the apartments in one of the 4 glass towers of the Neo Bankside building complex.
© Photo Ludovic Sanejouand, 2016
