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Please forgive the blurry image – it’s an artist’s impression scanned in from last night’s Evening Standard – but was enough to make me very excited. This is the new temporary pavilion which is being built this summer at the Serpentine Gallery. By Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, it is made from translucent material and can be lit from within at night. The walled enclosure below the canopy will be used as a café and events forum.
Every year for the past seven years, the Serpentine Gallery – a gorgeous little avant-garde art gallery in Kensington Gardens – invites a different world-famous architect to build a summer ‘pavilion’ on its outside lawn. The structures are only open between July and October each year, so the architects are encouraged to go a little bit crazy.
My favourite in recent years was the Oscar Niemeyer pavilion in 2003 which echoed the profile of the Victorian building behind (though I wouldn’t have painted the ramp red) and I didn’t much like last year’s brutalist tortoise-shaped effort. It sounds like this year’s giant light installation will reach new heights of superb nuttiness though.
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NIEMEYER PAVILION |
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BRUTALIST TORTOISE |
What a fantastic event to look forward to every year!! That globe pavillion looks like it will be quite a site! I am going to check out the website. Thank you for sharing!!
Yes it is really cool. We live fairly close by, so we get to see it in all stages of construction as we drive by. And it is nice to see what architects come up with when they aren’t too constrained (though a recent proposal for the pavilion to be a HUGE mound of earth with a warren of rooms underneath apparently didn’t get planning permission!)
Found it!
Pretty cool to be able to observe the process. Would love to see a photo once construction is completed!
Blimey we agree on something !!!! I also thought Niemeyer’s pavilion was the best and it seemed such a shame it had to be taken down. It was especially good to see a building of his work after going to see a retrospective of his work at the Guggenheim in New York.