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The Bjarke Ingels-designed 2016 Serpentine Pavilion makes an appearance in Toronto before traveling further

2018-10-17T18:01:00-04:00

[...] the 2016 Unzipped pavilion by the Danish architect Bjarke Ingels was acquired by a wealthy collector: the Canadian developer Ian Gillespie, whose company Westbank was a sponsor of the London presentation. Last month, the shape-shifting 14-metre-high, 27-metre-long installation made the move to inner city Toronto, where it was unveiled on the site of the architect’s next commission for Westbank, a massively ambitious housing complex on King Street West.

Another member of the growing family of the Serpentine Galleries' annual summer pavilions has found a new home: the Bjarke Ingels-designed Unzipped pavilion — famously praised by The Guardian's architecture critic Oliver Wainwright as "possibly the Serpentine’s most impressive pavilion yet" when it opened in June 2016 — was recently unveiled to the public on a site in Toronto where BIG's mountain-shaped King Street condo building will rise soon.

View this post on Instagram Open till midnight tonight with live music. . . . . #unzippedtoronto #nbTO18 #architecture #toronto #exhibition #design
A post shared by Westbank (@westbankcorp) on Sep 29, 2018 at 9:48am PDT

The pavilion won't stick around for too long though and is scheduled to travel to other international cities before reaching its final, permanent site in Vancouver.

A rendering of the pavilion's final destination in Vancouver. Credit: Westbank.

Earlier this month, it was reported that the 2018 Serpentine Pav...

Julia Peyton-Jones discusses her legacy and leaving the Serpentine Gallery

2016-06-30T11:45:00-04:00

The London art world won’t be quite the same after July 8. That’s the day Julia Peyton-Jones is finally taking her leave of the Serpentine Gallery where she has been director since 1991. Over 25 years, she has overseen a programme that, bearing in mind the organisation’s relatively diminutive scale, has punched well above its weight with exhibitions that have included everything from Helen Chadwick’s unforgettable bubbling chocolate fountain to Marina Abramović’s 512 hour-long performance piece.

Read relating articles here:

Editor's Picks #448

2016-06-20T09:50:00-04:00

Robert Urquhart visited BIG's 2016 Serpentine Pavilion and the new Summer Houses. Olaf Design Ninja_ approved "Adeyemi's is very architectural and tectonic. still modern while taking on that neo classical stuff. and Leibingers is nice too...."

Plus, Nicholas Korody published 'The Permanent Temporality of Refugee Camps: The Syrian Chapter' a Masters thesis project of Nikita Gyawali, a student at the Aarhus School of Architecture.

News
Orhan Ayyüce recommended reading Nick Currie in Art-agenda, in which the Scottish artist tears into the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, "vis a vis its older cousin, the art biennale." Currie also writes (about 'Fundamentals', Rem Koolhaas’s 2014 Biennale of Architecture) "Depending on your perspective the results were either Brechtian or resembled a severe case of Asperger syndrome" and makes reference to Max Weber’s Verstehen.

Oliver Wainwright reviews the 2016 Serpentine Pavilion (and new Summer Houses) offering(s). Will Galloway placed this year’s ...

Inside Barkow Leibinger's Serpentine Pavilion Summer House

2016-06-10T15:06:00-04:00

"For us it's a prototype. For us, a prototype means it will have another life,” “Right now, our summer house operates at a scale of something maybe like furniture or something like a small building, but a prototype is something that has a resonance, it's something that lives beyond its four months here, that will occur on a different scale, in a different place.”

Barkow Leibinger's Summer House is constructed with four structural bands made from plywood and timber. The piece is grounded by a bench, then strengthened by three central curves with a double layered free flowing cantilevered roof.

The duo known for their research-led process and playful style pay tribute to the similarly playful William Kent structure that once stood on a nearby manmade hill. When in use the small structure provided panoramic views of the park while at the same time mechanically rotating 360 degrees.

The Summer House equally provides innumerable views and is particularly expressive in the changing light; continually offering new lines and shapes with the recast shadows. The surging curves are expressively fluid and trace the movements of something reminiscent of an initial sketch. An idea paused in time.

Sitting within the structure you feel part of the architectural process; a structure Frank Barlow described as, “a dialogue and a continuation”.

Archinect's U.K ...

Twists and Turns: BIG's Serpentine Pavilion and the new Summer Houses on Archinect Sessions #67

2016-06-09T15:51:00-04:00

This year's winning Serpentine Pavilion, designed by BIG, came with an architectural posse—for the first time in the Serpentine Pavilion's history, the annual competition also featured four "Summer Houses" designed by other international architects. The pavilion and summer houses open to the public tomorrow on the Serpentine Galleries' lawn in London's Royal Kensington Gardens, and we discuss our initial take on their at once surprising and familiar elements.

Get briefed on the pavilion and the summer houses with Robert Urquhart's coverage here.

Listen to episode 67 of Archinect Sessions, "Twists and Turns":

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Shownotes:

Donna's endorsement: The "not another a...

Inside Asif Khan's Serpentine Pavilion Summer House

2016-06-09T14:40:00-04:00

Asif Khan who, exuding youthful energy, called the Summer House a “project” and an “opportunity”. The structure forms a circular enclosure with a circular seat at its middle, shaped by vertical white slats softly bending upward. Khan explained his research into Queen Caroline’s Temple, saying, “I took that as a departure point for my project, and plugging in sun path calculations to the existing temple, because there had to be some seriously clever way that it was positioned.”

“This is the ultimate birthday present for a queen!” said architect Asif Khan, who designed one of the four new Summer Houses that are installed as part of the 2016 Serpentine Pavilion exhibition. Alongside BIG's main Serpentine Pavilion, Yona Friedman, NLÉ, and Barkow Leibinger each designed the other three houses that portray their own architectural flair.

Khan's Summer House takes a poetic, what-could-have-been approach to reinterpreting the original Queen Caroline's Temple. The installation features a circular seat placed inside a circular form “shaped by vertical white slats softly bending upward”. Its circumference “has been unpeeled to connect us and the Temple to a picturesque moment left hidden by William Kent almost 300 years ago”, Khan describes in his artistic statement.

Using sun path analysis, Khan realized that Kent aligned the Temple toward the direction of the rising sun on March 1, 1683 — Queen Caroline's birthday. “Taking that as a moment in time, which Queen ...

Inside Bjarke Ingels' Serpentine Pavilion: "The work becomes a pure manifestation of that architect."

2016-06-09T13:22:00-04:00

“I think when an artist exhibits in a gallery that is sometimes a white cube or a former power plant or warehouse, they have a lot of freedom to focus on the manifestation of their work. You can almost see the Serpentine Pavilion as exactly that: it’s a small pavilion in a gigantic park. The work becomes a pure manifestation of that architect.”

Opening to the public tomorrow, BIG's Serpentine Pavilion has been likened to pixels, Minecraft, Gehry, and "a wall that has enjoyed a good lunch." Made from stacks of fiberglass boxes, the strikingly tall pavilion creates a light-filled canopy in its interior meeting space.

The structure was purchased by developer Westbank and will be disassembled to tour the U.S. and Asia once the Serpentine's Summer Architecture Programme ends, on October 9. As pointed out by The Guardian's architecture critic Oliver Wainwright on Twitter, the design greatly resembles BIG's 2008 residential proposal for Ansan, South Korea.

For more Serpentine Pavilion coverage:

Inside Kunlé Adeyemi's Serpentine Pavilion Summer House

2016-06-09T13:11:00-04:00

“While observing the building, we realized that the internal void was really a great quality to reveal, and so our building is really an inversion of that,” [Kunlé Adeyemi] explained. “In a way, it’s a rotated from of the temple that highlights the interior space and also creates the fundamental purpose of what we think a summer house is: a place for shade and relaxation."

Kunlé Adeyemi of NLÉ's Summer House for the Serpentine Galleries is constructed in prefabricated sandstone blocks, similar to the stone used in Queen Caroline's Temple, the 18th century summer house that served as its inspiration.

While known for his modernist designs, Adeyemi focused on the form and proportions of the neoclassical Temple, developing his own design from the "voids," or negative spaces, of the original.

Archinect's U.K correspondent Robert Urquhart covered this year's Serpertine Pavilion in depth and had the chance to hear Adeyemi describe the pavilion in his own words.

"We’ve been able to use this opportunity to perhaps create a place [in line with what] we think is a tradition in London: a tradition of public space and some form of humour in architecture, somewhere that furniture design and material in context can all come together," Adeyemi states.

For more on this year's Serpentine Pavilion and Summer Houses, read Urquhart's feature here.

Inside Yona Friedman's Serpentine Pavilion Summer House

2016-06-08T15:16:00-04:00

At 93 years of age, Friedman is the oldest architect in the group. He took the opportunity to further explain the thinking that has propelled his life’s work, and the origin story behind the structure. The Summer House, Friedman explained, “was improvised from small models that I was putting together and it was reproduced. And for me the most important [thing was] that anyone could make this, and I made this experiment and it was built by children.”

Yona Friedman officially describes his ephemeral, elegantly 16mm steel-framed Serpentine Summer House as "a space-chain construction of 4 + 1 levels...composed of cubes defined by 6 circles of 1.85 metre in diameter" that rest upon the ground. It's "essentially a movable museum and exhibition."

Luckily, Archinect's very own U.K.-based correspondent Robert Urquhart, who covered this year's Serpertine Pavilion in depth, had the opportunity to speak with Friedman, who noted that “I think that architecture is first of all social, it has to be manageable, the interior is made by the inhabitant. An architect can invent the sculpture of reality.” For more of what Robert and Yona discussed, check out the piece in the link above!

"Possibly the Serpentine's most impressive pavilion yet": Olly Wainwright on BIG's Serpentine Pavilion

2016-06-07T13:51:00-04:00

A teetering stack of fibreglass blocks has landed in Kensington Gardens, rising above the Serpentine Gallery in a stepped wall, before billowing out to form a cave-like space within... From one side, it looks like a wall that has enjoyed a good lunch. The blocks stretch outwards in a swollen bulge, like a snake devouring its gallery-going prey. From the other, it looks caught in a stiff breeze, a pixelated curtain rippling in the wind.

"In keeping with the best-observed-from-a-distance nature of other BIG buildings, the detailing is also a bit clunky, with each fibreglass frame bolted and bracketed in rather heavy-handedly, due to time constraints," writes Oliver Wainwright. "Still, the interior remains a stunning space, a shape-shifting cathedral that is possibly the Serpentine’s most impressive pavilion yet."

Construction of Serpentine Pavilions begins

2016-05-13T05:30:00-04:00

Construction of the 2016 Serpentine Pavilion and Summer Houses has started. For the first time, the Serpentine Galleries has expanded its annual architecture programme to include four Summer Houses, located a short walk from the Gallery in Kensington Gardens, in addition to the 16th Pavilion on the Gallery lawn. For the fourth year running AECOM, in collaboration with David Glover, is delivering technical advisory services for the project...

This is the first year that the main Serpentine Pavilion – designed by BIG this time – will be accompanied by a series of smaller "summer pavilions." Kunlé Adeyemi of NLÉ, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman and Asif Khan have each designed a pavilion for the nearby Kensington Gardens.

The pavilions will open to the public in June.

Serpentine unzips Bjarke Ingels' Pavilion and 4 Summer Houses

2016-02-24T13:21:00-05:00

Bjarke Ingels' unfurling wall-based pavilion joins four summer houses—designed by Asif Khan, Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, and Yona Friedman—to create this year's Serpentine Architecture Program. Each of the four summer houses riffs on the adjacent Queen Caroline's Temple designed in 1734, while BIG's Serpentine Pavilion appears to have been inspired by the desire to, according to an interview with Ingels in the Standard, "use rationality and rigour to create the extraordinary out of the ordinary.”

“We’ve played with one of the most basic elements [of a building] — the wall,” Ingels explains. “Typically, walls are made from stacked identical elements. When you see it you can sense how it fits into our general way of thinking. We are playing with the idea of bigamy — you don’t have to choose between box or blob.”

According to the Serpentine Pavilion's website, Asif Khan's summer house was designed in part to mimic the Queen Caroline Temple's orientation toward the Serpentine Lake, ...

What's the Big Deal‽ – Assemble, Serpentine and YAP winners, and BIG controversy on Archinect Sessions #52, with special guest co-host Will Galloway

2016-02-11T18:25:00-05:00

Long-time Archinector and reliably sane commentator Will Galloway joins us from his base in Tokyo to discuss the weekly news, including his interview with Assemble, crucially taking place mere weeks before they won the Turner Prize. While news from Bjarke Ingels Group commanded the feistiest comment threads this week – with renderings of BIG's spiraling Hudson Yards tower provoking debate over craft in skyscrapers, and the firm being selected to design the Serpentine Pavilion for 2016 in their last last eligible year – recent news included big wins for firms both star-studded and unknown. MoMA PS1 named Escobedo Solíz Studio as the 2016 winner of its Young Architects Program, for their "Weaving the Courtyard" submission, while Dame Zaha Hadid received her RIBA Gold Medal (the first woman to win solo). Lastly, for you planning wonks, we throw in a brief discussion of a controversial proposed ballot measure to halt big developments in Los Angeles.

Listen to episode 52 of Archinect Se...

BIG to design 2016 Serpentine Pavilion, alongside smaller "Summer Houses" by Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman and Asif Kahn

2016-02-10T15:29:00-05:00

The Serpentine Galleries in London announced earlier today the designer of the 2016 iteration of their annual Pavilion series: Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG, the Copenhagen and New York-based global powerhouse.

This summer marks the 16th Pavilion of the acclaimed program, which began in 2000. Conceived initially by Julia Peyton-Jones, the outgoing co-director of the Galleries, the Serpentine’ Pavilion commission is awarded each year to noted architects who have never built in the UK.

As Peyton-Jones’ swan song, this summer’s program will be expanded to include four other 25 square meter structures, or “Summer Houses”, scattered on the lawns of Hyde Park in close proximity to the Galleries. These will be designed by Kunlé Adeyemi – NLÉ (Amsterdam/Lagos), Barkow Leibinger (Berlin/New York), Yona Friedman (Paris) and Asif Kahn (London).

Since its inception, the Serpentine Pavilion has drawn large crowds, garnering public attention for practitioners whose reputations had not necessarily exce...