Every year, in the past 12 years
a certain temporary architectural project is being held in the Serpentine Gallery at
Kensington Gardens in London, which is known as the Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion.
For its realization, the Gallery has always selected outstanding
contemporary architects. This
year the selected team has been composed by Swiss
architects, born in 1950 in Basel, namely, Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron,
and by a Chinese conceptual artist, born in 1957 in Beijing. Ai Weiwei also
works as an architect, photographer, curator and he is a globally recognised
human rights activist, the same design team behind Beijing's superb “Bird's
Nest Stadium”.
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“Bird's Nest Stadium” Photograph: creativeclass.com
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Thanks to the reputation of their innovations, creativity and the involvement
in the previous works, the selected team had generated much expectation to the
public. And as the result, there is a Pavilion with archaeological references
to the former pavilions that incorporates elements of the eleven previous
structures and it also has a conceptual reference to this exciting year for
London, representing a connection between the Beijing 2008 and the London 2012 Olympic
Games.
In fact, this year is the twelfth commission in the Gallery's annual
series, Herzog & de Meuron
and Ai Weiwei. The team involved has
created a space for the pavilion by digging under the lawn of the Serpentine Gallery
garden that was used by the previous pavilions, shaping in it a sculptural
arena cladding entirely in cork, a sustainable building material chosen for its
unique qualities and to echoing the excavated soil. Eleven columns,
characterising each past pavilion and the twelfth column representing the
current structure support – a floating platform roof filled with water to
reflect the London’s sky and the surrounded trees. The roof platform can be evacuated from the water and could be used as a
stage for performances.
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| General view of the pavilion 2012 Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images |
The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion operates as a public venue for Park
Nights, the Gallery's programme of public talks and cultural events, it is also
an open place for public to share, relax and contemplate.
I would like to add that I have had the opportunity to visit some of the
previous pavilions, and I would like to share some of the pictures I had taken,
in my following posts, but in this post, I just want to make a reference to the
present pavilion that, unfortunately, I have not visited yet. Since I have carried
out a research, I am suggesting some links to you in case you are interested in
getting to know more about this interesting pavilion 2012 as well as about the
Serpentine's acclaimed annual Architectural commissions.
The Serpentine Summer Pavilion will be open to
the public until 14 October 2012
