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Here’s what the critics are writing about the 2024 Serpentine Pavilion

2024-06-12T16:31:00-04:00

The 23rd Serpentine Pavilion exhibition opened last week in London’s Kensington Gardens, drawing the usual mixture of praise and derision from UK-based critics who responded to the Archipelagic Void from Minsuk Cho and Mass Studies.

Kicking things off was the perfunctory Rowan Moore review. The Guardian’s longest-tenured critic seemed to enjoy the programmatic diversity of elements such as the Library of Unread Books and Play Tower, quipping that it is “an architectural equivalent of Korean multi-dish meals.”

Serpentine Pavilion 2024, Archipelagic Void, designed by Minsuk Cho, Mass Studies © Mass Studies Photo: Iwan Baan Courtesy: Serpentine

“It’s an enjoyable, playful, centrifugal-centripetal place, loose but distinctive, not afraid to be a bit ugly, full of contrasts and surprises, that gets a lot into its fairly small square footage,” he concludes. “The design is characterful but not dominating. It feels like what it is – a temporary building – rather than one that wishes it were...

This year's Serpentine Pavilion, inspired by London's immigrant gathering spaces, opens a year later than planned

2021-06-10T18:41:00-04:00

The latest iteration of the Serpentine Pavilion is now open in London after more than a year of COVID-related delays.

South African studio Counterspace had to wait 10 months to present its final design after being named to the commission in February of 2020.

Serpentine Pavilion 2021 designed by Counterspace, Exterior View © Counterspace Photo: Iwan Baan

The women-led team completed the commission's 20th Pavilion using repurposed materials including wine corks, steel, and cement leftover from marble production. This culminated in a carbon-negative building six meters in height that brought together elements from the city’s disparate migrant enclaves in an amalgam of typologies meant to articulate different scales of intimacy, according to Counterspace’s founder Sumayya Vally.

Serpentine Pavilion 2021 designed by Counterspace, Interior View © Counterspace Photo: Iwan Baan

To gain perspective for the structure, Vally spent four months in the city looking for gathering spaces that typifi...

All-woman team Counterspace to design 2020 Serpentine Pavilion

2020-02-10T14:32:00-05:00

Amina Kaskar, Sumayya Vally, and Sarah de Villiers, who form the Johannesburg-based architectural studio Counterspace, have been commissioned to design the 2020 Serpentine Pavilion. All born in 1990, the trio are the youngest architects to design the Serpentine Gallery's iconic pavilion in its 20-year history. Founded in 2015, Counterspace's work focuses on research and interdisciplinary arts-based projects, with an emphasis on architectural projects and community engagement.

Amina Kaskar, Sumayya Vally and Sarah de Villiers of Counterspace. Photographed by Justice Mukheli in Johannesburg, 2020. © Counterspace.

Counterspace's concept for the Serpentine reflects their focus on inclusivity. Combining traditional and innovative building techniques, their design is a poetic interpretation of the gathering, community-oriented spaces around London.

The shapes of the pavilion are “created from a process of addition, superimposition, subtraction, and splicing of architectural forms, direct...

What about the developers who love—and love to donate to—Donald Trump?

2019-08-12T17:02:00-04:00

The billionaire real estate developer whose support for President Trump sparked calls for a consumer boycott is also behind one of the flashiest redevelopment projects coming to downtown Los Angeles.

The Los Angeles Times points out that Stephen M. Ross, the controversial real estate developer and investor behind Related Companies, luxury gyms Equinox and SoulCycle, and other business interests, is also a driving force behind The Grand, a Frank Gehry-designed mega-project slated for Downtown Los Angeles.

Ross's business interests have recently taken a hit as news of the developer's plans to host a $250,000-a-seat fundraiser for President Donald Trump came to light just days after a white suprematist gunman evoked the president's own words before killing 22 people in El Paso, Texas. Nearly all of the victims in the shooting were either Mexican Americans or Mexican nationals, according to The Los Angeles Times, and the tragedy is widely seen as a direct and racially motivated attack on those communities, as a result.

Ross's political activities—and the consumer-focused business investments that fuel those activities—have come under fire as other elements of society, particularl...

First photos of Junya Ishigami's 2019 Serpentine Pavilion ahead of this week's opening

2019-06-18T13:13:00-04:00

A flowing canopy roof of slates has emerged in recent weeks in the pristine gardens of London's Serpentine Galleries. Supported by a forest of superslim columns, the cavernous space will begin welcoming guests this week as the galleries' 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Japanese architect Junya Ishigami.

"My design for the Pavilion plays with our perspectives of the built environment against the backdrop of a natural landscape, emphasizing a natural and organic feel as though it had grown out of the lawn, resembling a hill made out of rocks," Ishigami said describing his design.

"This is an attempt to supplement traditional architecture with modern methodologies and concepts, to create in this place an expanse of scenery like never seen before. Possessing the weighty presence of slate roofs seen around the world, and simultaneously appearing so light it could blow aw...

2019 Serpentine Pavilion architect Junya Ishigami draws criticism for unpaid internships in Japan

2019-03-22T16:01:00-04:00

A few weeks after being commissioned to design the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion, Junya Ishigami + Associates and the Serpentine Galleries are now under fire after it emerged that the big-name firm uses unpaid interns in Japan, the Architects' Journal reported today.

An email sent by Junya Ishigami + Associates in response to a student seeking an internship opportunity lists a set of “conditions”, which include unpaid interns having to provide their own software and computer equipment, and working Monday-Saturday from 11 a.m. to midnight for a period of at least 8-12 weeks. Artist/designer Adam Nathaniel Furman tweeted a screenshot of the email last week...

Though controversial in the UK, unpaid internships are still common practice in Japan. Before opening his own practice, Ishigami worked for SANAA — who has also been criticized in the past for not paying their interns — until 2004.

According to the Architects' Journal, the Serpentine Gallery said “it was not aware the practice used ...

Japanese architect Junya Ishigami announces plans for design of 2019 Serpentine pavilion

2019-02-14T13:40:00-05:00

Japanese architect Junya Ishigami, known for his experimental works that blend nature and fantasy, has been tapped by the Serpentine Gallery to design their popular summer attraction, the Serpentine Pavilion. The highly sought-after commission follows the success of previous iterations by rising stars in the world of architecture, Frida Escobedo (2018) and Diébédo Francis Kéré (2017).

Junya Ishigami, KAIT Workshop, Kanagawa Institute of Technology, Japan, 2008 © Junya Ishigami + Associates

At 44, Ishigami, who worked at SANAA before starting his own practice, has amassed a unique body of work. In 2010, he was awarded the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Architecture Biennale for his installation “Architecture as Air," praised by the jury for pushing the "limits of materiality, visibility, tectonics, thinness, and ultimately of architecture itself.” Described by Oliver Wainwright as a magician of materials, Ishigami's gift for creating unfeasibly light structures is obvious in o...

Serpentine Galleries, Google, and David Adjaye launch augmented-reality architecture competition

2019-02-06T20:28:00-05:00

Serpentine Galleries teamed up with Google Arts & Culture and architect David Adjaye to launch the “Serpentine Augmented Architecture” competition, which is currently accepting proposals for an augmented-reality installation that will be developed and experienced on-site at the Serpentine Galleries — and located next to the 2019 Serpentine Pavilion — this summer.

The competition is seeking speculative proposals and imaginary city spaces that explore the role and utility of AR in public-space design: How can augmented reality rethink spatiality? How can AR be used to develop new ideas about the way our cities are designed?

The international call is open to architects, designers, games developers, artists, and the like, at any stage of their career. Individuals, teams, and studios can submit. The submission deadline is February 25, 2019 at 10 a.m. GMT.

Give it your best shot, as the winning commission will be selected by an esteemed jury that includes: David Adjaye, Architect and Tru...

Frida Escobedo's Serpentine Pavilion sold to spa company Therme

2018-10-09T13:26:00-04:00

The [pavilion] will now be displayed in ‘selected locations’ as part of the Therme Art Program, which was set up to fulfill artistic and architectural ’visions that cannot be realised in galleries or museum spaces: no matter how complex their production, installation and long-term maintenance may be’. Serpentine Galleries chief executive Yana Peel and artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist said in a joint statement that they were ‘delighted’ by the purchase.

Construction begins on 2018 Serpentine Pavilion

2018-04-23T19:19:00-04:00

Construction is now underway for the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, which is scheduled to open in June in time for summer outdoor festivities at the Serpentine Galleries in London. Mexican architect Frida Escobedo — who was commissioned to design the 2018 pavilion in February — is working with AECOM, contractor Stage One Creative Services, and the Serpentine Galleries to bring the anticipated installation to life.

Escobedo's design fuses elements of Mexican domestic architecture and British materials and history, while playfully integrating light, water, and geometry.

Serpentine Pavilion 2018 Designed by Frida Escobedo, Taller de Arquitectura, Design Rendering, Interior View © Frida Escobedo, Taller de Arquitectura, Renderings by Atmósfera.

The pavilion comprises two rectangular volumes positioned at an angle to form an enclosed courtyard — a common feature of Mexican domestic architecture. The courtyard's axis will be directed to the north, in reference to the Prime Meridian that was est...

Zaha Hadid's seminal artwork makes its Hong Kong debut

2017-03-17T19:17:00-04:00

Ceaseless experimentation was the root of Zaha Hadid's architectural practice, as depicted in her early drawings and paintings. The Serpentine Galleries and Zaha Hadid Design teamed up to showcase Hadid's artistic prowess in the exhibition, “Zaha Hadid: There Should Be No End To Experimentation”, which opened today at the ArtisTree gallery in Hong Kong.

Presenting Zaha Hadid's artwork in Hong Kong for the first time, the exhibition shows her paintings, calligraphic drawings, and rarely seen private sketch notebooks, along with VR experiences and screenings of archival footage.

Hafenstrasse Development; Hafenstrasse Development, Hamburg, Germany, 1989; © Zaha Hadid Foundation.

Concept Painting, Cardiff Bay Opera House, Wales, UK, 1994-1996; © Zaha Hadid Foundation.

Head over to Bustler for more about the exhibition.

Diébédo Francis Kéré announced as Serpentine Pavilion 2017 designer

2017-02-21T11:36:00-05:00

" Diébédo Francis Kéré, the award-winning architect from Gando, Burkino Faso, has been commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2017, responding to the brief with a bold, innovative structure that brings his characteristic sense of light and life to the lawns of Kensington Gardens. "

Diébédo Francis Kéré, Photo by Erik Jan OuwerkerkSerpentine Galleries have revealed that this year's pavilion will be designed by Diébédo Francis Kéré. The pavilion's design responds to the changeable British climate, whilst being influenced Kéré's ecological design ethos which drives his Berlin-based practice.

Last year's design by BIG drew in huge crowds, and acted as a discussion piece throughout the summer.

Diébédo Francis Kéré, Photo by Erik Jan Ouwerkerk

Digital Elytrons. Latest Architecture Technology at the V&A Museum.

2016-07-06T04:48:00-04:00

Todays, pavilions are an omnipresent type of building. Unburdened to a certain degree from constraints of conventional architectures, such as program or function, pavilion designs offer architects a reign of technological and formal possibilities. Architects are commissioned for designs, in which speculation, provocation and experimentation is allowed, or even more, it is requested. Currently, visitors of Victoria & Albert Museum, run in the courtyard into an exemplary architecture experiment, posing a radical statement for contemporary digital architecture technology.

The Elytra Filament Pavilion, designed by a team of architects and engineers around Achim Menges from the Universities of Stuttgart and Munich, demonstrates a visionary for a yet to be determined digital future in the building industry. Within the context of the exhibition "Engineering the World: Ove Arup and the Philosophy of Total Design", the museum's courtyard has been turned into a test ground for the latest emerg...

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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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."