A man has died after falling from the Tate Modern in London this morning, February 2, the local Metropolitan Police have confirmed. They said that his death is is being treated as “unexpected but not thought to be suspicious.” Tate Modern was evacuated and closed for the day.
Emergency services were called at 10:45 a.m. local time and the London Ambulance Service sent an ambulance crew, a paramedic on a motorcycle, an incident response officer, and a clinical team manager. It also dispatched London’s Air Ambulance.
Despite their best efforts they were unable to save the man. Authorities are now working to identify him so that they can notify his family.
“We are very sad to report that a member of the public passed away at Tate Modern this morning,” the museum said in a statement. “The police are not treating the event as suspicious, but we have closed the gallery for the day as a mark of respect.”
The gallery did not say where the man fell from. In 2019, a six-year-old French boy suffered serious life-changing injuries when he was pushed from Tate Modern’s 10th floor viewing balcony by teenager. The attacker was convicted of attempted murder.
In recent years, a spate of deaths at internationally renown cultural sites including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Vessel in New York’s Hudson Yards, have prompted discussion about how to increase public safety at such places. In 2016, following the public debut of the Thomas Heatherwick-designed Vesseli, journalist Audrey Wachs wrote: “As one climbs up Vessel, the railings stay just above waist height all the way up to the structure’s top, but when you build high, folks will jump.” Four people have died by suicide there since 2016.
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