The Serpentine Gallery has, year after year, successfully curated exciting summer pavilions, commissioning some of the world’s most famous and infamous architects to design their version of the perfect temporary garden pavilion.
The architect is chosen by the Serpentine with only one rule: the architect must not have built a building in Britain before.
The Serpentine Pavilion story is one of those great British stories; it began not with a grand 10-year plan to curate a series of works but rather with a crazy idea for an impromptu summer party, a one-night-only fund-raiser which turned out to be so successful that it instigated the idea for the annual event.
The first pavilion, by Zaha Hadid in 2000, (when she had hardly built anything at all, let alone in Britain), was a simple tent-like structure taking the form of triangulated panels extending to the ground. It was a marquee but just, not as you know it.
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2000 by Zaha Hadid
The following year the gallery’s director, Julia Peyton-Jones approached the Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind to design the second.
That year, 2001, the architecture and planning world was embroiled in polarised opinion over Libeskind’s proposals for the spiralling V&A extension. His designs for the pavilion, although staunchly “Liebeskind”, were surprisingly playful, reflecting the greenery of the park and the brick building of the gallery in sheer metallic panels.
The following year the gallery’s director, Julia Peyton-Jones approached the Polish-American architect Daniel Libeskind to design the second.
That year, 2001, the architecture and planning world was embroiled in polarised opinion over Libeskind’s proposals for the spiralling V&A extension. His designs for the pavilion, although staunchly “Liebeskind”, were surprisingly playful, reflecting the greenery of the park and the brick building of the gallery in sheer metallic panels.
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2001
The rest is now history, (the full list and images of Summer Pavilions can be found here) and love them, or love to hate them, they have never failed to excite.
Designs for the latest pavilion, by Peter Zumthor, were released last week. It only took one visit to one of his buildings (a uni field trip to the Thermal Baths in Vals) to turn me into a fan of his work, and although some of the images of the pavilion are rather “Cambridge School Of Architecture”, they do evoke some of the intricate plays of light and framing of views that caused delight at Vals.
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011 by Peter Zumthor
The rest is now history, (the full list and images of Summer Pavilions can be found here) and love them, or love to hate them, they have never failed to excite.
Designs for the latest pavilion, by Peter Zumthor, were released last week. It only took one visit to one of his buildings (a uni field trip to the Thermal Baths in Vals) to turn me into a fan of his work, and although some of the images of the pavilion are rather “Cambridge School Of Architecture”, they do evoke some of the intricate plays of light and framing of views that caused delight at Vals.
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011 by Peter Zumthor
The exciting thing about the Serpentine Pavilion for me, however, is not whether it’s designed by your all-time favourite architect. Nor does it lie somewhere in the high-brow architectural theory that may, or may not be behind the original intent, but actually, it’s just in the faces of the general public who pass by; it’s in that afternoon you had a picnic there with your friends; a fleeting moment when a strange temporary structure changed an ordinary day into something extra ordinary.
Thermal Baths Vals 1996 by Peter Zumthor
From the joyful beginnings of summer until its sad end, we are all engaged with the fleeting, weird and wonderful spectacle that takes place in this public park year after year.
But has the premise of the original idea run its course?
The initial thrill in seeing works by starchitects who have never built in Britain before has waned somewhat. I mean how many more can there be exactly? Something that seemed so courageous at the time, does now seem a little out-dated.
In these hard times for young architects should the serpentine summer pavilion be given to emerging practices rather than stroking the ego of internationally renowned ones?
In fact next year, how about the only rule being that the architect must be British and must have not built a building in Britain before? A new decade of pavilions built by unknown practices, their first project forming part of the Serpentine Pavilion legacy.
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