Two weeks ago, a translucent pod of glass-reinforced plastic, poised atop enormous sandstone boulders, appeared on a curve of lawn in Kensington Gardens in London. The folly [...] is by the Chilean architect Smiljan Radic, whom the nearby Serpentine Galleries chose to create a temporary structure in its front yard. It is the 14th year that the museum has commissioned a Serpentine Pavilion, always turning to an architect who has not previously built in Britain [...]. — nytimes.com

The leggy damsel with raven hair and Doc Martens to match is unequivocal. ''No,'' she tells the small, freckled boy. ''You can't climb here. Go in there where it's safe.'' [...]

But the boy - not recognising her livery - can be forgiven his mistake. To him, the large, gridded edifice that she guards promises infinite climbability. [...]

The climbing frame in question is in fact art. It is this summer's Serpentine Pavilion, by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. — smh.com.au

Occupying some 350 square-metres of lawn in front of the Serpentine Gallery, Sou Fujimoto's delicate, latticed structure of 20mm steel poles will have a lightweight and semi-transparent appearance that will allow it to blend, cloud-like, into the landscape and against the classical backdrop of the Gallery's colonnaded East wing. Designed as a flexible, multi-purpose social space - with a café sited inside - visitors will be encouraged to enter and interact with the Pavilion... — serpentinegallery.org

London’s Serpentine Gallery has selected Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto to design the 2013 Serpentine Pavilion, a temporary structure open for four months starting in June. Fujimoto’s proposal for the Kensington Gardens site continues the architect’s exploration of transparent and organically generated forms with a cloud-like structure composed of 20-mm steel poles that intersect and form a delicate linear latticework to shelter a cafe and events space below. — blogs.artinfo.com

Ai Weiwei will not attend the opening tomorrow of his architectural debut in London. One of the most important artists in the world today, and certainly the most famous Chinese artist, Ai has been under “city arrest” in Beijing since last year, unable to leave the Chinese capital and under constant surveillance from the Communist Party regime. He is accused of tax avoidance but many suspect his treatment is in retaliation for his outspoken and frequent criticism of the Chinese government. — London Evening Standard

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London, designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, was presented to the press today before it will officially open to the public tomorrow, June 1. — bustler.net

London's Serpentine Gallery just released plans for the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei. This summer's pavilion, the twelfth commission in the gallery’s annual series, will be open to the public from June 1 to October 14, 2012. — bustler.net

The Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei collaboration – the 12th pavilion – breaks the mould of the sequence so far as the criterion for the commission had been for an architect not to have built in England. But Herzog & de Meuron are also deeply engaged in the art world, having built the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. They are currently working on art museums in New York, Miami and Kolkata. — ft.com

So who did Zumthor call upon to provide the garden, the green hortus at the centre of his conclusus? Piet Oudolf, of course, foremost exponent of the new perennials movement, a low-key Dutchman with the build of a rugby player who has practically cornered the market in high profile planting projects: the Lurie Garden at Chicago’s Millennium Park, New York’s Battery Park and the wildly popular High Line are among his best known works. — telegraph.co.uk

Peter Zumthor's first completed building in the UK opens this Friday, July 1: the 2011 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. The concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. One enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. — bustler.net

While Norman Foster and David Chipperfield issue pitiless streams of press releases about their fabulous projects, wins, achievements, awards, honours, Zumthor does not cultivate journalists. On the contrary, he tends to be ever so slightly disobliging to reporters. — telegraph.co.uk