Seen after a summer storm, the Serpentine Pavilion 2026's tactile brick body looks fresh, orange and inviting. Some of Serpentine Galleries’ past commissions in London's Kensington Gardens may have sought to convey a sense of enclosure – either as discrete structures with traditional walls and windows, or objects that discussed shelter or a meditative space. This year, the design by Mexican studio Lanza Atelier looks open, fluid – and yet smartly delineated by simple forms: a bench, a wiggly wall, a light, translucent flat-roof structure. It is clear, legible, yet somehow deconstructed – and we can't wait to step inside.

Explore the Serpentine Pavilion 2026 by Lanza Atelier

When the fast-emerging practice, founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo (their past works include Mexican retreat Casa Jajalpa, featured in the December 2020 edition of Wallpaper*), was announced as the Serpentine Pavilion 2026 designer in January this year, its directors spoke of a curvilinear wall snaking across the site. Their pavilion was fittingly named a serpentine and nods to the crinkle-crankle wall, an outdoor, typically brick structure found lining site borders, often enclosing a garden. The duo talked at the time about creating moments that frame 'movement and pause', 'gentle geometries' and 'permeability'. The real thing, opening its doors this week, does not disappoint.

The Lanza pair explain that the pavilion's core idea was there from the very beginning, and once they started researching their project's setting, place and history and linking it up to their own fascinations about materiality (and specifically brick, which they have often used in their past works), it all made sense and came together cohesively quite organically. Arienzo recalls: 'Initially, we tried making a patio, and a lot of things, but the crinkle-crankle wall appeared and it was perfect because it's like a serpent.'

The structure sits slightly offset from the site's centre, its curvy wall gently echoing the orientation of the path that leads from the street to the Serpentine South Gallery's entrance. It subtly divides the north and south parts of the site – true to the historical positioning of the crinkle-crankle, the architects explain, which often looks south. 'We also wanted to have something in the perimeter,' Abascal explains. 'We didn't want it right at the centre, and we put a bench on the south side of it.'

This way, they stress, the pavilion embraces the entire plot. The aim is to encourage visitors also to use the lawn between the bench and the wall and make full use of the gallery's outdoor areas. One cannot help but think that their pavilion makes a beautiful floorplan drawing, and they seem rightly proud of it too.

The pavilion has a strict budget, so architects always need to get inventive with their designs. Being smart and frugal with restrictions, materials and finances came naturally to the team, too. 'It relates to our way of building in Mexico,' Abascal says. 'You have to be very clever in what elements you need in the structure. We always try to build less. And we also try [to get the] different elements to perform more and work hard. I mean, maybe a wall carries a roof, and also divides, but what else?'

Using brick - and a focus on beautifully crafted materiality - in clever and unexpected ways naturally resonated with the duo, and they worked with blocks neatly tied together through metal fastenings and rods that go through each element's holes. It's a universal material with a strong history in the UK's built environment (and the brick they used comes from the region), but it gave them a challenge, and in turn, they gave it a twist.

Arienzo says: 'The challenge was creating a disassemblable pavilion out of brick. A brick wall is typically solid; it's opaque, it's permanent. Usually, the brick's features are almost invisible, but here we are flipping them. So it's just brick, but with a twist, you know? Meanwhile, the roof is softer, lighter.' The floor is ceramic and follows the brick walls' colouring, producing a pleasingly unified effect. The pair also used their designs for the chairs within.

Adding to the delights of having a brand-new park folly to play with, Serpentine Galleries is also celebrating its pavilion project's 25th anniversary – a landmark moment and a bonus to the popular public piece of architecture that pops up in Kensington Gardens each year. And appropriately, since it all started with a Zaha Hadid-designed pavilion in 2000, this year's iteration includes a collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation. It takes the form of a dedicated programme of panel discussions and talks, set to take place inside the Lanza-designed construction throughout the summer.

Bringing together festivity and texture, the British garden and the idea of a folly, the Serpentine Pavilion 2026 will no doubt find itself comfortably at home in one of central London’s biggest green expanses – orange brick, curvy walls, and all. And don't forget, feel free to sit on the lawn.

Sponsored by Goldman Sachs, the Serpentine Pavilion 2026 by Lanza atelier will be on show at Serpentine South 6 June – 26 October 2026

Cecily Brown's exhibition opens with a group of nature walk paintings. As you enter the London gallery from Kensington Gardens, where spring is finally coming into bloom, there is a sense of the exhibition mirroring its environment.

'Hopefully it's uplifting and it's a bit joyous and the setting of the park is phenomenal, and very emotional for me as well,' Brown says to Wallpaper* at the opening of ‘Cecily Brown: Picture Making at The Serpentine South’. 'The park always cheers you up, doesn't it? On a beautiful day, it's hard to be sad when it's this gorgeous. Hopefully the paintings can add another layer to that.'

Surprisingly, 'Picture Making' is the artist’s first substantial institutional show in the UK. Brown is what we once would have called a ‘market darling’ – not only revered by critics, but also highly commercially successful. She moved to New York from London in 1994, as she felt out of place in the London art scene, which was dominated by the Young British Artists (YBAs) at that time, and has not really looked back.

While her life is primarily in the United States and the urban landscape of New York her work features nature almost exclusively meaning that many of her paintings are created from memory, photographs or a combination of both. Her painting is dramatic, sometimes frenetic, gestural and immediate and her references include the history of painting and popular culture from Breughel to Bitter Moon, a poem by Samuel Beckett.

We see these elements mixed effortlessly in these works made between 2001 and 2025. During this time, her work veers between the more abstract and the more figurative and back again. Some works are made quickly, and others, over months. The paintings can appear abstract at first, but as you spend time with them, figures appear and vanish into the brushwork. Some figurative elements jump out, while others are evasive, slipping in and out of view. Nature operates on its own terms, and while these works are beautiful, they are not simply a presentation of the bucolic. Couples passionately embrace, waves churn, limbs fade in and out of the greenery.

'I don't really like the word escape or escapism, but I do love the idea of getting lost in art, whether it's a painting, a film, a book or music,' says Brown. 'I couldn't get through life without any of those things. It's more like it's this parallel world, isn't it?'

There are also many drawings on display here, taking inspiration from children’s illustrations. They are truly delightful, as are the figurative monotypes that pepper the show. Illustrations are a theme that runs through Brown’s work, with certain images recurring in multiple paintings. She copies images to understand them further.

There is always the question, these days, about making art in the face of global strife, and Brown feels that while her work can provide a break, there is also an instability or unknown in her painting that also reflects our times. 'There is uncertainty in my work, and you're never quite sure where you are. There's a psychological unease that I think reflects the outside world,' she says. 'One does feel guilt for just being in the studio. I think Philip Guston had a famous quote – “How can I be sitting here thinking about red, yellow and blue when there's a war on?”’

Meander through the galleries, and Brown's works will open up around you. Beautiful and masterful at first look, they only reveal more over time.

‘Cecily Brown: Picture Making’ runs from 27 March to 6 September 2026 at Serpentine South

serpentinegalleries.org

The architect for the Serpentine Pavilion 2026 has just been announced – Mexico City studio Lanza Atelier, founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, has been chosen to design the newest iteration of one of London's most highly anticipated annual commissions.

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 – a landmark edition

The pavilion – a staple of London summertime – celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, making 2026 a landmark one for the Serpentine Gallery and its efforts in architecture. It all started with a structure by Zaha Hadid in 2000, and to mark the anniversary, the 2026 Serpentine Pavilion will also feature a collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation, taking the form of a dedicated programme of panel discussions and talks to take place inside the Lanza-designed construction.

'As we mark the 25th Pavilion, we reflect on these origins,' says Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director at the Serpentine. 'Since its inception in 2000, the Pavilion has acted as a catalyst for architects at pivotal moments in their careers. Lanza atelier’s Pavilion will mark the second time Mexican architects [have been] appointed, [the first being] Frida Escobedo in 2018. We are grateful to Lanza atelier for embracing this invitation, and we extend our sincere thanks to Sou Fujimoto for his generous guidance.'

Who is Lanza atelier?

The relatively young studio was founded in 2015 in Mexico City by partners Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo. The directors' experimentation with materiality and deep, contextual design work has resulted in acclaimed works, such as Mexican retreat Casa Jajalpa located about 40 minutes outside Mexico City, featured in the December 2020 edition of Wallpaper*. Various awards nominations and inclusions in emerging architects' lists across the world have cemented the dynamic practice's position on the global map - yet they have not had the chance to build in the UK capital.

This is where the Serpentine commission comes in – an annual award to a studio that has not had permanent, built work in London before. The studio said: 'It is an honour to be selected as the architects of the 25th Serpentine Pavilion, a milestone year for the commission. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to share our work with a wider public and to contribute to the Pavilion’s ongoing legacy of spatial experimentation and collective encounter.'

The 2026 Serpentine Pavilion design

The 2026 pavilion is titled a serpentine, nodding to the gallery as well as the English crinkle-crankle wall, an outdoor, typically brick wall which tends to snake along site borders, enclosing, often, a garden. This feature forms one side of the pavilion, which is placed in dialogue with its green surroundings in Kensington Gardens and a stone's throw from the Serpentine lake. Its distinctive brick materiality also ties it to the notion of the English garden.

The Lanza directors explain: 'Set within a garden, an evocation of the natural world, the project takes the form of a serpentine wall, conceived as a device that both reveals and withholds: shaping movement, modulating rhythm, and framing thresholds of proximity, orientation, and pause.'

'Inspired by the figure of the serpent as a generative and protective force, we draw a parallel with England’s winding fruit walls, which are structures that temper climate, create shelter, and enable growth. From this idea emerges a pavilion built of simple clay brick, foregrounding vernacular craft and the elemental capacity of architecture to bring people together. The 2026 Pavilion proposes built forms that are permeable, shaped and held by a gentle geometry, and continually responsive to those who move through it.'

Sponsored by Goldman Sachs, the Serpentine Pavilion 2026 by Lanza atelier will be on show at Serpentine South 6 June – 26 October 2026

‘Whenever I do something – an exhibition, a book, a public art project – I wonder how it is useful for the world. To what extent is it useful for an audience; for the arts, not for the artists?’ It is a question which preoccupied Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director and cultural polymath Hans Ulrich Obrist as he sat down to write his memoir, Life in Progress, published by Allen Lane, in the early weeks of lockdown.

‘I didn't grow up in a family that had access to art. My parents didn't take me to museums. I went out into the world and found my own mentors. I thought that hopefully this would be useful for younger people to read, to have this encouragement to just go out into the world. Sometimes it seems quite complicated for younger people to find the beginning and to start.’

A famously staunch champion of the arts and artists, this enterprising spirit that defined Obrist’s early years can occasionally come as a surprise upon reading his memoir. Born in 1968 in a small town in Zurich, Obrist sought out his own cultural stimulation, travelling Europe by train to meet all the artists who responded to him. As a teenager, he staged his first exhibition of 250 photographs in his tiny kitchen before criss-crossing the continent, eventually becoming a curator at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, before becoming director of the Serpentine with Julia Peyton Jones in 2006.

Throughout the short and succinct book, Obrist’s love of knowledge and forming connections is striking. ‘There is this idea that we can be a great expert in a specific field, but then there is so much we don't know outside that field,’ he says. ‘And it's actually all relevant. In my case, in art, I always felt it's important to find out what's happening outside the field of art – what's happening in science, music, literature and architecture. With a lot of artists now, I see that desire to break down these walls. So that's something which I think is important in terms of the current moment.’

And Obrist knows his artists. The book, itself a project he has curated, is a who’s who of the art world, with references to Fischli & Weiss, Edouard Glissant, Marina Abramović, Umberto Eco, Etel Adnan, Joseph Beuys, Christian Boltanski, Gustav Metzger, Louise Bourgeois, Gilbert and George, Tomás Saraceno, Kasper König, Rem Koolhaas, Bruno Latour, Annette Messager, Yoko Ono and Gerhard Richter, as well as many others, scattered throughout.

From Fischli & Weiss visiting him in his small flat in St Gallen before his kitchen exhibition, and buying enormous catering-sized portions of ketchup and rice to make the unused space seem more normal, to an exhibition co-curated with Gerhard Richter at Nietzsche’s house in Sils-Maria, the unexpected encounter drives Obrist. Everywhere, and everything, becomes a possibility for art.

‘I think it’s particularly important right now that art doesn't just happen behind the doors of exhibitions,’ he says. ‘Even with free admission – and that's very important for us, that it's for everyone – it’s not enough.’

Many years ago, says Obrist, a taxi driver dropped him off early in the morning at the Serpentine. ‘He said that he wanted me to tell the story of his daughter, that they walked in the park, and he would never take his kids to a museum, because his parents had told him museums were not for them. But then suddenly, as the Serpentine Pavilion has no doors, the daughter ran in. Now, she wants to be an architect. It’s one of the reasons why I get out of bed in the morning.’

When writing the book, Obrist was forced to look back on incidents like this that have shaped his life and career. It has led to initiatives he has spearheaded around the world, from taking art out of its traditional environment to questioning what art itself can be. ‘I really thought about how art came to me, and how I came to art. Growing up in a household where there were relatively few books, the only way I could find out about art was when it came to me through unusual channels.’

'Life in Progress' by Hans Ulrich Obrist, released on 2 October, is published by Allen Lane. Available at amazon.co.uk

Traditionally, art galleries can be solitary experiences, with visitors avoiding eye contact on a stroll around an exhibition. It is a custom Berlin-based British artist and game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley is keen to challenge, with the artist’s immersive new exhibition at The Serpentine encouraging visitors to interact – with each other.

The video game commission, The Delusion, is a multiplayer experience, inviting viewers to virtually enter digital portals. Inside each one there are conversation starters, reflecting on both the digital world and its often vitriolic and dangerous real-life consequences. Players follow prompts, and are encouraged to engage in honest conversations with themselves and each other.

For Brathwaite-Shirley, the game is a place for players to consider emotions which may spring from virtual interactions, shifting the focus from the digital to the real world in a bid to take viewers off screen. ‘I knew audience participation would be key when I started,’ Brathwaite-Shirley says. ‘Essentially, the aim of the games is to get the audience members to open up to each other - it will be a success if you turn to a stranger that you'd never usually talk to and speak to them. There's lots of different kinds of interaction that try and help build you to this talking moment.’

Brathwaite-Shirley is guided by instinct when creating the work, starting from a feeling – happiness, joy, sadness – and making a world from that, without being sure where it will lead or how it will connect. The end result is an organic mix of memory, experience and fiction. ‘The first time I worked like this, I just thought - what is this? But as feelings from different days are added on, you suddenly start getting a cohesive essence of something. It feels a lot like collage or painting. You are moving things around so that the image appears for you, rather than knowing exactly what it is prior to putting it out. I don’t know what the scene is going to be until it starts telling me.’

The artist is keen to create a space where people can speak freely, away from the often charged atmosphere online. ‘With trust building exercises, the game encourages a slow opening up, building to a gallery-wide conversation. It is set to a backdrop of a fictional world where every comment online comes true all at once, regardless of how crazy it is. It causes havoc and makes people withdraw from the world. In the game, the only way to_, connect with people is to imbue physical objects with a magic which allows you to enter portals of the subconscious - something that we all share. When you go into the gallery, it's like going into a house, but instead of behind a door, you might find a portal to another world, something to interact with.’

Animation as a medium has always fascinated Brathwaite-Shirley, who graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in 2019, before teaching herself how to make video games with 3D editing and game engines (the software framework designed for video game development). In a uniting of disciplines, Brathwaite-Shirley here works with collaborators from the Black Trans and Queer communities across disparate elements of the game, from the controllers and soundtrack to the set design.

‘In the early days, I had this idea that the work reacts for you, rather than just you reacting to the work,’ Brathwaite-Shirley says. ‘It's more of a dialogue. And I think that's why the games have started to become more particular, and why I use less gaming language around them, because for me it's more like I am building a conversation with the work.’ She saw a lot of art, and spent time around many artists who, she says, were more like journalists in the intense research they conducted. ‘The way people then take it in is very consumer,’ Brathwaite-Shirley adds. ‘It's very much like they suck it in and they spit it out in whichever way they want to. What I loved about the medium of games is you have to engage with it for it to start, and what you do could mess up the experience for yourself, and the only person to blame is you. It's an investment of time. In terms of making a mirror, it feels like a really good medium for a moment of self-reflection, and to then see what it could do in an art context.’

For the artist, it is key above all to form real-life connections off the screen. ‘There's moments where the game shuts off, so you don't have a choice but to look at other people or other things,’ Brathwaite-Shirley adds. ‘Something I was seeing a lot in gaming exhibitions was this beautiful game about humanity and empathy, and no one would look at each other ever, just at the massive LED screen in front of them. We're trying to see if we can use that very strong attention to this screen and then instantly switch it off. It is one big experiment to see if this interactive game can moderate the space, as well as if the people themselves can open up and help other people to as well, to be there and listen for others.’ The nature of the game meant the artist had to relinquish a certain measure of control, handing over the reins of the game’s direction to the players. ‘If the players invested a nugget - putting in their name, religion, gender - then the game gives something back.’

It is an experiment supported by The Serpentine, who were on hand to advise on the logistics of stepping away from the usual exhibition format, advising on everything from encouraging interaction between visitors to safeguarding and protecting the privacy of players. ‘They really understood that this is an experiment that we want to do. We're aiming for it to be as strong as we can get it, and if we do see that failure, it will be as positive as if we see the success.’

Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, The Delusion, at Serpentine North from 30 September 2025 - 18 January 2026

This article appears in the November 2025 Art Issue of Wallpaper*, available in print on newsstands, on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS, and to subscribers of Apple News + on 9 October. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today

Serpentine Galleries marked the official start of summer with its annual party last night (24 June 2025), bringing a plethora of guests together in a celebration of 25 years of the Serpentine Pavilion.

Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum and her Dhaka-based firm, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA), designers of the 25th Anniversary Serpentine Architecture Pavilion, titled A Capsule in Time, were guests of honour at the event hosted by Michael R Bloomberg, chairman of Serpentine’s Board of Trustees; Bettina Korek, Serpentine CEO; Hans Ulrich Obrist, Serpentine artistic director; and actor, producer and humanitarian Cate Blanchett.

Guests, who were able to browse Giuseppe Penone’s exhibition ‘Thoughts in the Roots’ at Serpentine South and enjoy Sir Peter Cook’s Play Pavilion, dined in style on dishes including traditional dum pot biryanis, topped with pastry, layered marinated meats and vegetables with basmati rice. Members-only platform Dorsia was on hand with a tempting food trolley, offering chicken tenders and caviar.

Chef Skye Gyngell, of Spring, stepped in for desserts. Bangladesh’s seven-layered tea was the inspiration, resulting in infusions of lychee and saffron, as well as coconut, mango and sesame cakes.

‘From our loyal patrons to our inspired partners, we are deeply grateful to all who made this year’s Serpentine Summer Party a success,’ said Korek and Obrist. ‘Last night was a celebration of the artists whose projects extended from inside the galleries and beyond their walls into the surrounding park, of Serpentine supporters everywhere, and of the Serpentine Pavilion’s 25th anniversary. In the words of our very first Pavilion architect, Zaha Hadid, “There should be no end to experimentation.” Thanks to the generosity of the global Serpentine community, and especially our inaugural Summer Party Host Committee, the Serpentine spirit of experimentation will continue throughout the summer and all year round.’

A colourful structure has appeared in Kensington Gardens; the Play Pavilion is a joint project by Lego Group and the Serpentine Pavilion, conceived and unveiled today to the public to celebrate World Play Day (11 June). The day marks the Lego Group’s take on the UN’s International Day of Play, 'which states that play is an essential right for every child’s growth and happiness'.

Explore the Play Pavilion in London

The structure, built in part using Lego bricks in bright orange and other primary hues, was designed by architect Sir Peter Cook of CRAB Lab and sits in the park next to Marina Tabassum's Serpentine Pavilion 2025, and will be open until 10 August.

Cook said: 'I’ve always believed architecture should surprise you, especially if you’re young. The Play Pavilion does just that, not in a grand way, but in the small detail and moments of discovery as you navigate the space. Inspired by young people, there is a space to hide, climb, perform or simply let your imagination run wild. It really is about unlocking infinite possibilities through play.'

The pavilion comes with its own, bespoke, free, summer programme of events, addressed to play enthusiasts of all ages. The scheme responds to the company's research, which shows that one in three children feel that existing spaces are not designed with their needs in mind when their creation is led by adults; meanwhile seven in ten (69 per cent) of parents express concern that their city 'does not offer safe and accessible play spaces'.

The Play Pavilion's inception aims to zoom in on these needs. 'If you don’t make play a priority, you lose more than joy – you also lose empathy,' said Lego's Kristofer Alan Crockett during the opening events. 'It’s a gift to the city and a pavilion for the community.'

The Play Pavilion is open until 10 August 2025, serpentinegalleries.org

This is a big year for the Serpentine Gallery – its Serpentine Pavilion 2025 marks 25 years since the original commission to Zaha Hadid, which saw the first in the series of temporary structures make an appearance in London's Kensington Gardens. The annual pavilion has since become a beloved staple of London summertime – always by a different author, an architect who has never built anything in the UK before, encouraging experimentation, creativity and architectural dialogue within the industry and far beyond.

So when this year's architect, Bangladeshi Marina Tabassum, conceived her pavilion in the last quarter of 2024, she fittingly chose to use her project as a prompt to discuss ideas of time, permanence and the role of architecture.

'I have always loved this notion of light and how atmosphere is created. There is a certain timelessness about working with geometry, atmosphere and formal expression,' Tabassum says. 'At the same time, our work is about the temporality of architecture. We are designing places for refugees or building houses for marginalised communities who are constantly being displaced.’ (Tabassum's Khudi Bari, a demountable, modular house prototype responding to Bangladesh's recurrent flooding disasters, a result of climate change, is an example.) ‘In this pavilion, these two different practices merge.'

A walk through the newly opened Serpentine Pavilion 2025

Her pavilion design, titled A Capsule in Time, reflects on such themes, and takes the physical shape of an (oversized) capsule too. The structure is built entirely of timber and features translucent, coloured glass that filters dappled light into the interior, allowing glimpses of the park's leafy setting beyond. It also moves, one of its central sections (there are four in total) set on wheels that allow it to join one of the arched ends to form a much larger, covered area. This will serve to host the myriad events the gallery has planned in its public programme throughout the summer, as well as to shelter any visitors when the London weather becomes a touch too unpredictable.

The project's easily legible, clean forms nod to a simplicity, scale and sense of geometry that the architect was keen to underline through her work. This minimalist take also allows the play of light and shadow within to take centre stage, mesmerising its guests to forget themselves and lose track of time.

Complementing this sentiment, a semi-mature ginkgo tree at the pavilion's heart will symbolise the passing of time as it grows and evolves through the commission's life (the pavilion will be taken down in October 2025), gently signalling notions of change. It also connects the structure to the park's tree-filled expanses, into which it will be transplanted after the pavilion's tenure here ends.

'The tree is also on the same axis as the bell tower of the Serpentine. It contextualises the whole building in its place,' Tabassum explains. 'The idea was also about bringing a very translucent light into the space so that it has this very serious, quiet, silent quality to it. People can come in and spend time, as long as they want. It just doesn't let you go. It keeps you, and you see the atmosphere change as the light changes throughout the day.'

Tabassum's work – all of which is located in her home country, with the exception of an installation of Khudi Bari at the Vitra campus, which was originally designed for Bangladesh too – embodies her philosophy of site-specific and sustainable architecture, and a purposeful design, which taps into its locale and is borne out of its contextual conditions. Was designing for a London environment different?

'I have never built here before, so there were a lot of unknowns, for sure, but I knew that this was a temporary structure,' she says. 'The wooden framing was for that reason, and it doesn't require too much of a foundation. I am always about sourcing whatever is near and readily available, and built locally. Foundations are reused. We worked very closely and collaboratively with AECOM and Stage One, who have been building these structures for quite some time now.'

The result feels solid, textured, grounded and contextual. At the same time, with the rise of the digital world and social media, the way architecture is experienced and news is consumed has no doubt changed in the years since the first Serpentine Pavilion commission. Does a pavilion still feel relevant today, as it did 25 years ago?

Tabassum thinks so: 'You could bring in your drawings and models [for an architecture exhibition], but architecture cannot be experienced through a model and a drawing, right? A pavilion makes sense, because then you are allowed to build not only your practice and your ethos, but also your creativity, and showcase it in a certain location. The Serpentine also benefits from it, because they also use this space in terms of all the free activities for the public and promoting art. It is an exhibition – but one that you can use.'

marinatabassumarchitects.com

serpentinegalleries.org

The 2025 Serpentine Pavilion will be designed by Marina Tabassum, it has just been revealed. The Bangladeshi architect and her Dhaka-based firm, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA), have worked on a proposal for a structure titled A Capsule in Time, reflecting on the themes of temporality, permanence and legacy in architecture. The annual Serpentine Gallery, built outside Serpentine South, is a staple (and highly coveted) commission in the London calendar, often seen as marking the kick-off of the summer season.

Tabassum has become known internationally for her crisp, textured and highly sustainably driven architecture. Her Khudi Bari design (a modular home prototype whose name means 'little house') was launched at the Vitra Campus in Europe last summer and is a great example of her work. It is a light, easily demountable and movable structure, designed as a response to Bangladesh's recurrent and frequent flooding disasters, a result of climate change. Her Serpentine Pavilion will be another rare example of her work outside her home country. We caught up with the architect at her Dhaka office to discuss her design.

Marina Tabassum on the 2025 Serpentine Pavilion

W*: Congratulations! Please tell us how the commission came about. When did you find out you won it?

Marina Tabassum: The commission is an invited competition to some extent, among architects who have never built in London before. I was invited to send a proposal in 2017. It didn't work out that time, but in 2023, the Serpentine came back asking if I'd still be interested. I got an email from Hans [Ulrich Obrist, the gallery's artistic director] sometime in early October that they chose my proposal to be built this year. It was very exciting. It also came at a time of political unrest and uprising in Bangladesh [refering to the country's student uprising in July 2024], leading to the fall of a government, so it was quite a difficult time for us. A lot of people lost their lives. It was a troubled time, and our design being selected was a breath of fresh air for us and something to look forward to in 2025.

W*: What does this commission signify for you?

MT: It's an interesting commission. It stays there for a very short time. It's a celebration of the London Summer. I've visited several of the Serpentine Pavilions before. Architects in the entire world always look at it, we always wonder who's doing the next one and what are they coming up with as their idea. It is short-lived and it is light-hearted, but at the same time, you can bring up all different kinds of agendas that concern our time. We can express ideas.

W*: What is at the core of your idea for this year?

MT: My interest was in the notion of time. The design reflects a sort of time capsule that will be there for five months. People will be using it in different ways; Serpentine events will happen, people will come from all over the world to visit it, and there are also the regular Kensington Garden users. And then, all of a sudden, by October, it's gone. And then we wait for the next one. So there is this temporality, but the design keeps on living in the virtual realm. At the same time, architecture has always been used as a tool to bridge generations and civilizations. It's been used as a celebration of power. It defies the whole notion of time. In a way, it is quite similar to the way our houses [in Bangladesh] are in the delta. The houses move, and they go away, but the story of where a house was, and how the family used to use it, becomes a sort of oral history, passed on from generation to generation.

W*: Tell us about your pavilion's afterlife.

MT: You have to think about the afterlife and its sustainability. You're using a lot of money, material, and effort. For me, my initial thought was that it could become a library somewhere, it could be in a school. It could be donated somewhere. Its form is open as it receives people in the park during the summer; but once it becomes a library, it will be much more closed and become one singular form.

W*: What is it made of?

MT: It's made out of wood. It is a wooden structure, and that's quite interesting and exciting as this is my first ever building in wood. We went for glulam wood as it is available and can be sourced in this part of the world and it means the structure can also move. The pavilion has two arched spaces and two half domes. In between, we have these polycarb panels to create a very translucent light inside. I always like working with light. My projects, especially the mosques, and other projects, play a lot with this element. So, in London's beautiful sunny days, the pavilion will become a bright, cheerful space. I also wanted to connect the design to Bangladesh. We have these fabric made structures called shamianas. These are like pavilions in form, and quite often used for larger gatherings, like weddings, other religious occasions or any other activities. They represent a coming together in the community.

W*: What do you hope the visitor might take away from the pavilion after a visit?

MT: This is a space where people come together, and you know what, in the first quarter of our century we have seen many wars, one after another. This is a space where diversity can be celebrated, and we can have talks and discussions. A platform where we can reconcile or talk about our differences and become one human being.

2025 Serpentine Pavilion: the basics

The Serpentine Pavilion has been commissioned annually by the Serpentine Gallery since 2000, with Zaha Hadid kicking off the series with the first temporary structure in central London's Kensington Gardens, right outside the landmark art space's original main home. The project is always awarded to an architect who has never built a permanent structure in the capital before and has, over the years, become a who-is-who of contemporary architecture. Recent participants have included Lina Ghotmeh, Minsuk Cho, Sumayya Vally, Frida Escobedo and Francis Kere.

The 2025 Serpentine Pavilion will launch to the public on the 6th of June and will remain on site until the 26 October 2025. The venue is free to visit and will become the base for the Serpentine Gallery's experimental, interdisciplinary programme for talks and other events, including education and community activities. This includes Park Nights, a platform for live encounters throughout the fields of music, dance, philosophy, technology and more.

The Pavillion is supported by Goldman Sachs, and is made possible through a collaboration with engineers Aecom and producers Stage One.

serpentinegalleries.org

marinatabassumarchitects.com

The Serpentine Pavilion 2024 is titled ‘Archipelagic Void’ – a name that perhaps at first glance does not instantly bring a park installation to mind. Yet, as its author, Korean architect Minsuk Cho, the principal of Seoul studio Mass Studies, explains, it's a particularly purposeful description. The term ‘archipelago‘ is used ‘to bring together an amalgamation of cultures, and from it, something completely unexpected comes out’, says Cho. ‘It's not hybridisation. It's a great model for our globalised era.’

Now completed in London's Kensington Gardens, the large-scale installation is about to open to the public (accessible from 7 June 2024). This is the 23rd pavilion in the Serpentine Galleries' much-loved series. As always, it will be accompanied by a curated season of events, such as a newly commissioned soundscape by composer Jang Young-Gyu; The Library of Unread Books, a piece by artist Heman Chong and archivist Renée Staal; and a series of performances and talks. It's all part of a carefully composed, rich programme of concepts and activities, with Cho's architectural pavilion design at its heart.

Serpentine Pavilion 2024: utopian and meditative

At the core of Cho’s concept sits the idea of ‘bridging’ or combining, putting things (physical elements, cultural ideas) together. ‘In Korea, and perhaps other Asian cultures, the idea of the pavilion is about a simple, often wooden structure, placed among amazing surroundings, and its role is to be a humble, private, meditative space. It is more about observing,' he explains. ‘In the West, the pavilion is often seen as a folly, something otherworldly and almost utopian.’ 

His (self-imposed) task, realised through the 2024 Serpentine Pavilion commission, was to mix these two ideas of what a pavilion can be and surround them with different functions, creating a menu of activities for the visitor, as well as the option to flexibly adapt the space to potential new uses. This thinking led to a structure consisting of five 'islands' – they form the project's ‘archipelago’ – a concept also manifested in the idea of bringing the two different interpretations of a pavilion into a single piece.  

'The word “archipelago” came from a book Hans [Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director] was making with Édouard Glissant [The Archipelago Conversations]. They coined the [use of] “archipelago” as a way to generate this cultural diversity,’ Cho recalls, talking about what inspired the pavilion's name.  

'I wasn’t thinking about it as [an archipelago] as I was initially designing it, but two days before submitting the proposal, I came across the book and thought, that’s exactly what we’ve been doing!' 

The Archipelagic Void’s five ‘islands’

An open-air area in the middle of the structure offers space for contemplation in the shape of a circular 'void' that nods to the madang, a small, flexible courtyard found in old Korean houses and used for anything from household chores to family celebrations and ceremonies. The broken-down volume of this year's pavilion was also informed by its surroundings and temporary nature, and was conceived to help it blend with its leafy, low-rise context. 

Each of the 'islands' is designed to have its own function and purpose. The 'Gallery' is a welcoming main entry, 'extending Serpentine South’s curatorial activities outside'. The 'Auditorium' becomes an informal, gathering area for events and impromptu meetings. The 'Library' is one of the smallest areas and offers 'a moment of pause'. The 'Tea House' references Serpentine South's historical role as a tea pavilion. And the 'Play Tower' is the home of a multifunctional, netted structure for kids (and adults) to play in.

Cho worked on his pavilion's floor plan vigorously. 'Looking at the previous pavilions, 22 before us, each brought a different way [for the public] to be in a generous space of different shapes. I am an architect and think in floor plans. In my practice, I have designed pavilions in the past, so we thought, what about we empty the place we use together the most, and we create an 8m void there instead?' he explains. 

'We looked at ways of bringing people together. It's about being generous and offering choices. So there are these different experiences around it and this empty space in the middle – the most flexible space, it can be whatever you want. Like a Korean madang.'

An additional bonus of the loosely star-shaped layout of the pavilion is that it creates a variety of outdoor areas in-between the irregularly shaped, built sections – more open-ended public space for visitors and users to make their own. 

The result is a structure placed on a concrete base that not only negotiates the site's slope with flair (supporting the pavilion's upper level, it becomes a bench, a perch or a table at different parts of the building's body); it also connects to the existing concrete foundations on site, ensuring it reuses what's there and no significant new groundwork was needed. 

The top is made of timber (Douglas fir, sourced locally) and recyclable PVC panels that add playful translucency and a punch of colour. Keeping things environmentally friendly was important to Cho and his practice. The material selection also makes the whole soft and tactile – another important quality for the team.

Adding to its sustainable architecture credentials, the structure can also be disassembled to travel in future. Its five sections' relatively simple, modular nature means they can be reconnected in a variety of ways. The architect adds: 'We calculated that taking down the elements that make the pavilion and reconnecting them in different configurations offers the possibility of creating, upon reassemblage, 180 new, different pavilions.'

There’s something poetic about his thinking – a bridging of cultures, a coming together – matched with efficiency and careful spatial planning that makes the most of the brief and maximises it. Combining invention and discovery, East and West, the 2024 Serpentine Pavilion is about to open. 

The Serpentine Pavilion 2024 will be open to the public 7 June – 27 October 2024

serpentinegalleries.org 

massstudies.com

At every show across the world, the gallery attendant is on permanent display. They are, along with their functional chair, as much a part of the furniture of the art gallery as its meticulously positioned frames or silent white walls. Since the invention of the exhibition, these workers have kept a close eye on the works that surround them, handed out literature, offered visitors impromptu art history lessons and ensured that Do Not Touch signs are adhered to.

Or not adhered to, perhaps. After all, in recent years, climate activists have glued themselves to displays, as well as launched a Warholian tin of tomato soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and slashed ancient masterpieces. Elsewhere, a banana on display worth £90,000 was eaten and an 18ct gold toilet was stolen. The art gallery has never been more infiltrated.

But, more strikingly, there’s also been a change in the way we see art. With a collective attention deficit thanks to our phones, demand for more immersive experiences and the strange social hangover of the pandemic, our general interaction with exhibitions has changed. Visitor experience workers get to experience this experience; looking at people who are in turn looking at art. It makes for a surreal chain of perception.

Many gallery attendants are also artists in their own right, working at exhibitions to finance their own creations in the hope that, one day, their own work will be displayed. But what is it really like staring in silence for hours on end, a sitter without a painter? We spoke to gallery attendants currently working at London’s Tate, Serpentine, Barbican and V&A to hear more about the role.

Assaf Hinden's photography, viewed throughout, is exhibited at Braverman Gallery in Tel Aviv until July 6 2024

bravermangallery.com

Gallery attendants on watching you looking at art…

Eleanor, Tate

Eleanor: I started at Tate Modern in December 2022 after studying Art History at University. At Tate, we're ‘visitor engagement assistants’, so there's a focus on creating a safe environment and talking to visitors. Having conversations with visitors who are enthusiastic about art is a genuine pleasure at work. Some of the art on display really evokes strong reactions in people, especially impressive large-scale ones like those in the Turbine Hall.

Tastes may have changed over time but big names have always attracted a lot of interest, with many visitors still asking for Picasso, Warhol, Rothko or Pollock. Social media may have had an impact on the increase in interest in immersive or interactive art exhibitions. Yayoi Kusama's Infinity Mirror Rooms was hugely popular and Yoko Ono's new exhibition is also proving to be busy due to visitors activating the art themselves.

You can become somewhat indifferent to the works after seeing them so often. But reading the wall text for a piece of art that you have seen thousands of times and never really been interested in can sometimes end up in you finding out something that you didn’t expect to learn. 

Attention spans really vary, with some people rushing through the galleries barely stopping to look at anything and some spending hours reading every piece of text available; apparently, on average, people look at a work on display for just eight seconds.

Laura, Barbican

Laura: The gallery is a space that shows the absurdity of life in the most delightful of ways. It's not for everyone. Many people quit within a few months. You have to be comfortable with your own thoughts and endure visuals and sounds for a long period of time; one piece, from Rangar Kjartansson, featured the same song for seven hours; another, in the Carolee Schneemann exhibition, featured a mop consistently dropping onto a TV. These might interest, inspire or amuse you, but also irritate, shock or bore you.

Interacting with the visitors can be very rewarding, but people frequently don’t acknowledge an invigilator’s presence, which means you can often be a fly on the wall to some entertaining conversations and behaviour. I’ve witnessed crying, laughing, screaming and, one disturbing day, a couple being overly amorous believing they had the gallery to themselves!

Often visitors feel like they need answers from you. Some come purely to take photos, never truly taking their eyes off their screen. Lots of people use it as a space to catch up with family and friends, dipping in and out of rooms and occasionally muttering comments about the work but mainly focusing on conversations with the people they’re with.

One of my most challenging moments was when a member of the public broke a very delicate sculpture right in front of me by suddenly slapping it with their hand. After seeing my shocked expression, she said, ‘I don’t think it’s art‘, and then walked away as if nothing had happened. You learn quickly that people have a natural desire to touch or get closer to things they’re not meant to.  

Some of my best ideas have come from my role here, from fictional exhibitions I've designed to stories I've written about anthropomorphised works of art. As an artist as well as an invigilator, I fully appreciate the importance of protecting artists’ work, but sometimes a little voice inside of me thinks: ‘It’s just things, made by people, that someone decided were important.’

Hazel, Serpentine

Hazel: You truly know it’s a successful exhibition if people are engaging and asking questions, and as gallery attendants we spend a lot of time researching to help with this.

For the first couple of weeks of an exhibition, I tend to focus my mind on the artworks, trying to understand each decision and each outcome made by the artist. After a while, my mind will wander and I find myself thinking about my own art practice. It’s an obscure skill to house a studio in your mind and I’ve definitely acquired it from my time as a gallery attendant.

Staring at the same artwork for hours can really change the meaning of the work and theoretically it is a privilege, but I think there’s something poignant and ephemeral about visiting an exhibition once.

Eleanor, V&A

Eleanor: The job sits at the intersection of visitor experience and security: we have to ensure that the millions that come to the museum have an amazing experience and get the very best out of their visit, all while keeping a watchful eye over the collection so millions more may enjoy it for years to come. We inspect the condition of the collections like a gardener tending their flowerbeds – constantly aware of any little changes or warning signs. 

Over the years I have learned so much from visitors. Sometimes, being asked very specific questions that I couldn’t answer was the impetus to go home and study so that I wouldn’t be caught short again – in some cases starting new passions of my own.

One enquiry about one of the smallest, most humble pieces of pottery sparked a fascination that led me to sift through archives, import books from abroad, and eventually, develop a talk that I still give to visitors to this day. I’ve even taken pottery classes since. 

There is so much to consider when walking through a gallery. The art of the objects, of course, but the curation, too: after a while the stories and the links between pieces and displays leap out and illuminate themselves, gradually weaving together in a magnificent tapestry of art and design history. You begin to imagine all the hands that each object has passed through on their individual journeys to their modern home. It’s a magnificent illustration of the enormity of human creativity.

The act of looking, and continuing to see, requires effort. If you’re not careful, it’s easy to let the art fall away and the objects just become things you happen to be walking past. To continue to engage with them is to keep them alive – engaging with the visitors is an excellent way of doing this. Perhaps, in a glance, they see something you have never noticed in years and share it with you.

People like to make conversation too, and I have noticed recently how the chat has swung away from the objects to the big picture: what’s the point of museums? Who do they serve? Who do these objects really belong to? This type of questioning about inclusivity is really healthy. After all, it’s the same questions museums are asking themselves.

Painting, photography and digital reproduction unite in Gerhard Richter’s new sculpture on the plinth at Serpentine South. 

The striped Strip-Tower nods to the German artist’s 2010 Strip Paintings, which themselves looked back to Abstract Painting 724-4, a painting created in 1990 that was then photographed. The resulting images were manipulated digitally on a software programme, before being divided into strips, which were stretched and laminated onto aluminium, and covered with Perspex. 

Here, Richter revisits this mixed-media approach, casting striped ceramic tiles on panels in a cross-section that invites visitors inside in a play on patterns, repetition and reflection. The work forms the latest project in the Serpentine’s long-standing partnership with The Royal Parks to install public artworks in the public green havens. 

‘This is a coda to the acclaimed Richter exhibition we hosted here at Serpentine South in 2008, titled “4900 Colours”,’ say Serpentine CEO Bettina Korek and artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist. ‘Strip-Tower is a three-dimensional manifestation of themes and methods that underpin Richter’s historic practice in painting, repetition, improvisation and chance and we are grateful to the artist, The Royal Parks and all our partners – specifically HENI – for this spectacular opportunity to build new connections between artists and audiences.’

'Strip-Tower' is at Serpentine South from 25 April – 27 October 2024

serpentinegalleries.org

As the Serpentine Pavilion 2023 completes and prepares to open its doors to the public later this week, there's hope that this spring's few, timid days of sunshine in London will make for a slow-burn, warmer summer. And once temperatures rise - and even if not - the latest iteration of the Serpentine Galleries' Kensington Garden annual summer special will be there to provide not only shelter (from the hot sun - or drizzle), but also a place to sit, socialise, relax and appreciate public architecture. 

And this is exactly what the French-Lebanese architect behind it, Paris-based Lina Ghotmeh, was hoping for, when she first conceived of her design. Titled 'À table,' the Serpentine Pavilion this year is envisioned as an open and democratic invitation for everyone to come together and enjoy nature, architecture, serenity, and each other's company. 

The Serpentine Pavilion 2023 is unveiled

Ghotmeh's design seems easy to read - a round arrangement of seating, set in a circular pattern, topped by a pleated, softly conical roof held up by timber posts. The 'circle' on floorplan can be divided into nine equal sections, and from those sections, the building's patterns arise - from the exposed beams on the ceiling, to the timber floor arrangement and its two rows of columns which dot the periphery - gently merging form and function. Its wooden structure was put together in collaboration with engineers Aecom and construction studio Stage One - and the entire pavilion was built predominantly from bio-sourced and low-carbon materials, its creators explain. This resonates with Ghotmeh's overall ethos, which favours sustainable architecture. There are perforated screens in the shape of leaf cut-outs, and bespoke furniture where visitors can sit. And of course, as always, this is all free, and soon to be open to the public to enjoy. 

This openness and public availability were key drivers when it came to the design development. 'When I got the commission, I was thinking that this pavilion [series] is always expressing the zeitgeist. How can mine do that? I thought about the importance of places of assembly. Also something that brings us closer together. A table unites this and memories from my childhood, moments where we are all routed to earth,' Gohtmeh said at the launch celebrations. 'I wanted to make a place of assembly. Also it's this moment to feel calm under a roof, something where we are protected and feel serenity. But I also hope to see a lot of children running around here.'

The Serpentine Pavilion 2023 architect: Lina Ghotmeh

As is traditionally the case, this is Ghotmeh's  first realised commission on London soil. The architect, who heads a medium sized practice in Paris, has worked on a number of built and unbuilt schemes so far - including the Maroquinerie de Louviers by Hermès in France, and the Stone Garden apartment block in Beirut - and has many more in the pipeline. When she got a call from Serpentine last year, she was surprised to find out it was about the pavilion. She was invited to make a proposal, which she did, and got the commission. 

Her approach appears confident and balances this with sensitivity, as context and material always play a key role in the architect's designs. With the Serpentine Pavilion 2023, this was also the case, as she took her cues from the existing surrounding structures, trees and planting in order to carve her volumes. The result, is a semi-open, light installation that feels subtle in its natural setting. 'It is a structure that’s meant to be really lightweight and can be transferred in the future,' Ghotmeh explains, highlighting the pavilion's ability to have an afterlife. 

The Serpentine Pavilion 2023 hopes to fly the flag for a sense of coming together, as well as a slowing down and contemplating, nurturing a feeling of community and nature. 

It opens to the public on the 9 June and will remain there, hosting a variety of events on a rolling programme, until 29 October 2023. 

linaghotmeh.com 

serpentinegalleries.org 

There were a lot of dogs galloping buoyantly around the Serpentine South gallery this morning (31 May 2023). This, to an extent, is expected, given that the gallery sits in the middle of central London’s largest park. But something else has got their – and our – attention; new sculptures from Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno’s Cloud Cities series, which populate the park, the rooftop and the façade of the gallery. It forms part of 'Tomás Saraceno In Collaboration: Web(s) of Life’, the artist’s first major UK exhibition, which involves a full-scale transformation of Serpentine South gallery, inside and out. 

Offering space for interspecies encounters and co-habitation, in this ‘living organism’, dogs, birds, ducks and insects – and particularly spiders – are welcomed, and honoured. ‘I was very happy yesterday because when you [first] build something, the dogs don’t come, the squirrels don’t come, then finally some birds have shit on the sculpture! The first success!’ Saraceno exclaimed in his opening speech. 

The show is an ecosystem of different life forms, where technologies and energy systems interlink in a cacophonous demonstration for the climate emergency. The show is also locked into Serpentine’s power supply, an intervention the artist refers to as the ‘Ballad of Weather Dependency’. Energy for the exhibition is generated by, and dependent on, solar panels newly installed on Serpentine’s roof; artworks on display will adapt to the weather, and therefore how much energy is generated. ‘We know that art is not about quantification but somehow we have to be responsible also,’ says Saraceno at the press view. 

Inside, visitors are welcomed into a dark room where a wood-panelled desk encasing literature about lithium extraction (for a film in the exhibition, Saraceno collaborated with communities of the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basin in Jujuy, Argentina, who are fighting to protect their lands against lithium extraction, driven largely by demand for batteries, which is polluting and diminishing one of the ecology’s scarcest and most critical resources: water). Fittingly, visitors are asked to surrender their lithium-battery phones before advancing through Saraceno’s show. The rest we absorb, wholly, with our actual senses, unpolluted by photo opportunities and incessant buzzing. 

The rest involves mostly spiders, Saraceno’s creative, spiritual and ecological muses. A film focuses on the spider diviners of Somié, Cameroon, and their intergenerational ŋgam dùin, a practice in which ground-dwelling spiders are asked a series of binary questions. Their responses are interpreted via the rearrangement of a set of cards placed at the entrance to its burrow. Throughout the course of the exhibition, local diviner Bollo Pierre ‘Tadios’ invites visitors to ask the spider a question via their web portal titled Nggamdu.org.

Then we’re greeted by a series of impossibly intricate architectural spider webs in glass boxes, glowing in the spotlights like silken constellations. For these, Saraceno collaborated with multiple spider species in his Berlin studio-cum-labatory. In this installation, and another, which sees a disused church confessional booth, traditionally found in churches, become a ‘space for communing with the vibrations of a spider’, we are asked to consult the spiders on the future of life itself and move away from arachnophobia (a fear of spiders) to arachnophilia (a love of spiders).

Saraceno’s Fly with Pacha, Into the Aerocene (2020-23) documents another well-known facet of the artist’s work: flight, its problems, and potential solutions. The film installation documents the artistic performance and flight of an aerosolar balloon sculpture over the salt flats in Argentina’s Salinas Grandes, marking the first ever fossil-free human flight devoid of batteries, helium, hydrogen or lithium. It was hailed as the most sustainable flight in human history by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), setting 32 world records. 

This was made possible through extensive, collaborative research carried out by the Aerocene Foundation (which Saraceno and others formed to devise new infrastructures of ethical mobility) and the indigenous communities of the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc basin in Jujuy who are fighting for the preservation of land and water which is threatened by the mining of lithium. 

As is customary with Tomás Saraceno, there’s a lot to unpack, but the exhibition’s success is in its lack of conventionalism; from the welcoming of dogs to the unwelcoming of phones – the show has legs, and lots of them. 

'Tomás Saraceno In Collaboration: Web(s) of Life’ is on view 1 June - 10 September 2023 at Serpentine South Gallery. serpentinegalleries.org

On 14 June 2017, a fire broke out at Grenfell Tower, a high-rise block of flats in the London neighbourhood of North Kensington. The deadliest structural fire in the UK since 1988, the blaze lasted for 60 hours and 72 people died. 

In December of the same year, Oscar-winning film director Steve McQueen began filming Grenfell Tower from a helicopter after learning that the building would soon be wrapped in a protective plastic sheeting. He sought to create a record of the scene before it was concealed from view, and public memory. ‘I knew that once the tower was covered up, it would start to leave people’s minds,’ says McQueen. ‘I was determined that it would never be forgotten.’

From 7 April-10 May 2023, McQueen’s haunting, politically-charged 24-minute film, Grenfell, will be presented at London’s Serpentine South gallery. The public screening of the film follows a phase of private community viewings that prioritised survivors and those bereaved by the incident, who were consulted during the creation of the film.

McQueen grew up on the nearby White City estate and first went to Grenfell Tower in the early 1990s to visit an art school friend. 'I remember thinking I had never been up this high in London before. The views were amazing,' he explains in the film's accompanying guide. 'When I heard about the fire, I needed to do something. I was in pain, like many other people, at witnessing a tragedy that simply did not have to happen, yet did due to deliberate neglect. The question for me at the time was, how do I engage with this tragedy? The only thing I could think of was to visit the building again, after nearly 30 years.'

McQueen's Grenfell uses no words, music or dramatisation. Instead, it is a raw and unflinching window into the tower six months after the incident in which McQueen’s camera repetitively encircles the charred council block, sometimes homing in on rooms where residents died and the forensic investigation was unfolding in real-time. 

As McQueen told The Guardian in an interview before the film’s release, ‘I didn’t want to let people off the hook. There are going to be people who will be a little bit disturbed. When you make art, anything half decent … there are certain people you will possibly offend. But that is how it is.’

Grenfell is the latest in McQueen’s oeuvre of potent, unflinching films and artworks that probe socio-political injustices and tell defiant stories of cultural resilience, including TV mini-series Small Axe (2020), the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave (2013), and Hunger (2008). 

Six years on from the Grenfell Tower fire, and four years on from Phase 1 of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, a criminal investigation is still ongoing, deconstruction of the building is yet to commence, and recommendations to prevent a similar future tragedy are yet to be implemented. The findings of Phase 2 are due to be released later this year. 

Grenfell by Steve McQueen will be on view from 7 Apr-10 May 2023. Free tickets can be booked via the Serpentine website. serpentinegalleries.org

Lebanon-born, Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmeh has just been announced as the designer behind the coveted Serpentine Pavilion 2023 commission. The project, an image of which has also been unveiled today, will represent the pavilion's 22nd iteration, set to open in London's Kensington Gardens. The architect is now joining the star-studded list of past Serpentine architectural pavilion creators, which spans from Zaha Hadid (2000) to Francis Kéré (2017), Frida Escobedo (2018), and Theaster Gates (last year's commission). 

'We are thrilled to present Lina Ghotmeh’s first structure in the UK here at Serpentine next summer,' say Bettina Korek, chief executive, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director at Serpentine Galleries. 'Her design for À table [the pavilion] draws on natural elements that reflect its surroundings in Kensington Gardens and expands on our mission of creating connections between architecture and society by promoting unity and togetherness in its form and function. We are endlessly grateful to our loyal partners and supporters, for making Ghotmeh’s brilliant concept for a pavilion built from state-of-the-art sustainable materials into an inspiring reality, for the people of London and for our visitors from around the world to enjoy all summer. As Etel Adnan once told us, “The world needs togetherness, not separation. Love, not suspicion. A common future, not isolation“.'

Ghotmeh is head of her eponymous practice, Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture, based in Paris. Her portfolio includes a range of commissions, from public to private work, and from cultural to commercial, operating internationally. The architect has already scooped a multitude of awards including the 2020 Schelling Architecture Prize. She teaches architecture and is a member of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture 2022 jury. 

Lina Ghotmeh and the Serpentine Pavilion 2023

Ghotmeh's design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2023 is titled À table – a 'French call for people to sit down together at a table'. It is conceived to nod to ideas of unity and discussion, common ground and meaningful human interaction. 

'À table is an invitation to dwell together, in the same space and around the same table. It is an encouragement to enter into a dialogue, to convene and to think about how we could reinstate and re-establish our relationship to nature and the Earth,' says Ghotmeh. 'The Earth that embraces us is our first source of sustenance; without it, we living beings could not survive. Rethinking what and how much we eat – how we “consume” and how we weave our relationships to one another and the living world – moves us towards a more sustainable, eco-systemic communion with the Earth. Our “cuisine” grounds us home; it reminds us how linked we are to the climates in which we grew up. As a Mediterranean woman, born and raised in Beirut, and living in Paris, I feel a deep belonging to our ground, to what it contains, and to what it embraces: from the buried yet weathering archaeologies of past civilisations to the embedded living world that spurs green life to sprout from every crack in the streets.'

serpentinegalleries.org

linaghotmeh.com

Upon entering ‘Infinite Folds’ at the Serpentine North Gallery – the first solo UK exhibition by the American artist, novelist and poet Barbara Chase-Riboud  – viewers encounter an untitled 1973 drawing of an imagined space composed of fragments and rock formations. The work evokes the vestiges of archaeological sites that Chase-Riboud saw in her travels across Africa and Asia in the early decades of her career. Rendered in three dimensions and seeming to extend infinitely into the black charcoal that surrounds it, the drawing foreshadows an interest in the themes and motifs that would become central to Chase-Riboud’s practice: history, memory, and the commemorative public monument.  

Chase-Riboud, who was born in 1939 in Philadelphia, trained at the American Academy in Rome and the Yale School of Art, where she was the first known African-American woman to receive an MFA. She has lived primarily in Paris since the 1960s. Sculptures from these earlier years, in their accentuated, slender and surrealistic style produced using animal bones, reflect the influence of Alberto Giacometti, whom she met in 1962. ‘Infinite Folds’ occurs at what Yesomi Umolu, director of curatorial affairs and public practice at Serpentine and curator of the exhibition, refers to as a critical juncture in Chase-Riboud’s prolific seven-decade career. It coincides with the release of a memoir, I Always Knew, and another retrospective at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St Louis. 

If Chase-Riboud’s practice is deeply invested in the notion of the public monument, her oeuvre is anti-canonical in its elegant disruption of established aesthetic conventions, and her choice of subject matter. In the early 1970s, she began to use fabric skirts to conceal the armatures that hold up her sculptures, and release them from what she calls the ‘tyranny’ of the base. Wool and silk appear to become the weight-carrying materials, while bronze floats above. ‘I was exploring the dynamics of opposing relationships… the metamorphosis of power from one to the other,’ she writes in I Always Knew.

Three pieces from Chase Riboud’s Monuments to Malcolm X series, including her first sculpture with a fabric skirt, are on display in ‘Infinite Folds’. In a 1970 review for The New York Times, the art critic Hilton Kramer suggested that there was a discrepancy between form and motif in the series, critiquing Chase-Riboud for producing works that were too beautiful, sophisticated, and imbued with a ‘French refinement’ to be about Malcolm X. Professional artists of colour, Chase-Riboud remembers, were expected to use a naturalistic, stylistic or ‘recognisable “Black” element’ in their work, while abstraction ‘was considered too cerebral for Black artists’.

These expectations and assumptions about what artists of colour should or should not produce have not stilled Chase-Riboud’s desire for innovation in her practice, while she continues to highlight individuals who exemplify the possibility of creating new, alternative monuments. Umolu points out that the artist’s early appreciation for marginalised figures was remarkably prescient, in light of recent conversations about how dominant histories are commemorated in our public spaces today (‘It’s about time,’ Chase-Riboud says.) ‘Barbara is offering not a minor history, but a parallel and equally-as-important history, prioritising those individuals and events that she feels need greater representation.’

Emblematic of these parallel histories is a series of works on paper, The Monument Drawings, which offer tributes to the Marquis de Sade, Nelson Mandela, Consort Zhen (a concubine of China’s Guangxu Emperor), and the Queen of Sheba. In sculpture, Cleopatra is commemorated through the creation of objects that Chase-Riboud imagines would form part of the contents of her tomb or home. Cleopatra’s Wedding Dress (2003) and Cleopatra’s Bed (1997), are composed of thousands of bronze squares sewn together with gold wire.

Occupying its own space at the conclusion of the exhibition is one of Chase-Riboud’s most recent works, La Musica Josephine Red/Black (2021). A tribute to the dancer, singer, actress, spy, and civil rights activist Josephine Baker, the sculpture is the culmination of a series commemorating iconic musicians. ‘For her, I knew I needed a new expression, not only for the expression of the stele, [but] I had to find a way to make [it] dance,’ Chase-Riboud says. ‘It is a movement away from and yet towards a new commemorative form taking the sculpture off the wall and into futurism.’ A shock of hanging red cord emphasises the bronze’s curving shape, its angles and protrusions suggesting muscles in constant motion and tension.

On an opposite wall, a manifesto written by Chase-Riboud and scholar and professor Sir Reginald Jackson accompany the work. ‘Sculpture must not sit still. Pillars fail to capture all the zeal Josephine’s Muse emits,’ it reads. ‘Let throbbing rhythm thaw Giacometti’s brittle toothpick limbs… Volcanic in its thrust, Josephine explodes then saunters routes right past their bones.’

INFORMATION

‘Barbara Chase-Riboud: Infinite Folds’ is at Serpentine North Gallery until 29 January 2023, serpentinegalleries.org

I Always Knew: A Memoir, by Barbara Chase-Riboud ($40/£30) is published by Princeton University Press, press.princeton.edu

Inside the Zaha Hadid-designed Magazine restaurant at Serpentine Galleries, a climate solution is cooking. In the face of a global food crisis, a complex set of problems around how we consume food requires an equally involved set of solutions. Daniel Fernández Pascual and Alon Schwabe, founders of London-based studio Cooking Sections, are working across disciplines with scientists, chefs, and policymakers on their ongoing research project, Climavore. As part of ‘Back to Earth’, the Serpentine's long-term programme featuring artistic responses to the climate emergency, Cooking Sections has created a menu of three dishes: one small, one large, and one sweet. Each aims to showcase an adaptive and ecologically conscious food system. 

What began in 2015 to encourage restaurants across the United Kingdom to replace farmed salmon from their menus with more sustainable ingredients (by way of stimulating marine habitats and improving water quality) has become a much larger conversation. Through collaborations with Cooking Sections, cultural institutions in the UK, Sweden, and the United States are addressing the issue of food industrialisation. ‘It's about setting the framework under which chefs, cooks, anyone, can develop to their own needs and scale,’ says Schwabe. ‘We're not writing recipes and distributing them to restaurants. These recipes are made by the chefs.’ 

The three new dishes for The Magazine are made with regenerative agriculture in mind. Using plants designed to improve the quality of their soil (a rotational crop practice rooted in Indigenous wisdom), tomatoes on toast is served on YQ sourdough – the name stands for ‘yield/quantity’, an alternative flour with a unique flavour profile. This approach strives to introduce renewed grain varieties at optimal times of the year. ‘When you go to the supermarket in cities like London, you can find pretty much anything all year round; there's a certain erosion of the seasons,’ says Fernández Pascual. ‘So we started to consider how seasons can inform choices, but also policies or landscapes.’

When we regard market stalls during the seasons: spring, summer, autumn, and winter, we're met with artichokes, blackberries, pumpkins, and clementines. But looking to the future, with the trajectory we're on, what would it look like to eat in the season of polluted oceans and drought or the season of wildfires and flash floods? This is the exact thought experiment that launched Climavore. ‘We thought it would be compelling to work with a restaurant to do an intervention there. For us, the restaurant is a significant place,’ says Fernández Pascual, who points out that the term ‘restaurant’ can be traced back to the 19th century, and derives from the French restaurer. ‘We like to see the restaurant as a place, not only to restore the human body but to restore ecology at large today.’ 

The Magazine is an extension of Serpentine North, which was built in 1805 as a gunpowder store. Hadid’s glass walls curve in space around oval skylights in the deep billowed ceiling, creating a characteristically organic form. The gallery's gardens can be seen past sculptural columns that punctuate the dining room. As the Serpentine’s leading food and drink destination, The Magazine is an extension of its exhibitions. After tomatoes on toast, the ‘Back to Earth’ menu offers British chickpea tabbouleh with bright summer squash, lemon verbena harissa, robust barrel-aged feta and mint. Then to finish, a seasonal rhubarb and British red and white quinoa cake, served with bay leaf honey and stem ginger ice cream. A simple menu infused with elaborate research. 

Through Climavore, Cooking Sections offers actionable sustainability through collective transformation. Any one of the ‘Back to Earth’ dishes is a feast for the palate, but more importantly, it opens a dialogue. It encourages us to participate in the discussion and include all voices in developing new strategies and innovations to better the future of food.

INFORMATION

serpentinegalleries.org; cooking-sections.com

How do you create a sacred space? Theaster Gates seeks to resolve this question with Black Chapel, his design for this year’s Serpentine Pavilion. It’s a fitting task for the Chicago-based artist, who has received international acclaim for his community and cultural interventions in Black space, particularly on the South Side of Chicago.

Nestled in London’s Kensington Gardens, the monumental black pavilion, realised with architecture studio Adjaye Associates, at once conjures up traditional concepts of the chapel, but also is securely rooted in the ideas of monumentality, taking up space, and disruption by way of creating peace and tranquillity. Instantly imposing, yet quietly meditative, it is a confident and sure statement and testament to Black communities, encouraging quietude, reflection and a retreat to nature. ‘I hope that folks from further afield than Hyde Park can find solace in this space,’ says Gates. Standing in his chapel, looking up at the oculus, it feels apt to transport oneself back in time and consider the Pantheon.

The Pantheon, completed around 126-128 AD during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, is one of the best-preserved monuments of ancient Rome, with its focal feature being a rotunda with a massive domed ceiling that has formed a lasting inspiration in the minds of artists and architects alike. The largest structure of its kind when it was built, the Pantheon is situated where an earlier structure with the same name, built around 25 BC by Marcus Agrippa, once stood. It is thought to have been designed as a temple for the gods.

At 16m in diameter and 10.7m high, Gates’ chapel is the largest Serpentine Pavilion to date, with a 201 sq m cylinder that dominates with formidable yet comforting grace. Gates’ architectural references include the beehive kilns of the American West, the traditional forms of Cameroon’s Musgum mud huts, Uganda’s Kasubi Tombs, and industrial structures such as bottle kilns in Stoke-on-Trent (the heart of the British ceramic industry).

Here, Gates draws on his own ceramic practice whilst connecting with the history of religious structures such as a 16th-century Tempietto in Rome designed by Donato Bramante, the Umbrian architect who would later design St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. Meaning ‘little temple’ the Tempietto is a small, circular church whose design mixes the aesthetic intentions of sculpture with the spiritual ideals of an ancient pagan temple, resting heavily on and honouring Classical aesthetics – a style popular during the Italian Renaissance, and assuring harmony and order. The elements are mathematically proportioned, a unity and simplicity also achieved in Gates’ investigations into clay. Black Chapel fuses spirituality with a multicultural High Renaissance.

The concept of a sacred space finds its origins in the very beginnings of civilisation, with iterations and reimaginings appearing in various cultures. It is significant – a universal construct that proves its necessity and healing power in its prominence and recalibration throughout history. Sacred spaces such as Black Chapel introduce meaningful experiences to the vast, homogenous expanse that city life can envelop us in.

Who are Gates’ gods? ‘I want to encourage Black presence,’ he asserts.

Gates, through a robust set of programming curated with the Serpentine, will activate the Chapel. And so we witness a hierophany, as interventions and activations of the pavilion seek to fundamentally alter our relationship with space and time. The measure of any architectural structure is its ability to transcend the contemporary and the historical, to transport those within into a world of the artist's design, and thus achieve a purpose. For Gates, this is to give form and space to Black meditative sound, convert the monastic to the contemporary and, as he divulges, ‘encourage ideas about performance and aesthetic traditions’.

As is typical in Gates’ practice, music is a fundamental component of the pavilion, which will host church choirs, experimental piano composers, and jazz musicians, building up to October’s closing performances by Grammy award-winning singer Corinne Bailey Rae and Gates’ ensemble The Black Monks, whose music offers a powerful celebration of Eastern monastic sound with the soulful musical backbone of the American South. Sitting outside the chapel is a large bronze bell, salvaged from St Laurence, a demolished Catholic church and landmark of Chicago’s South Side. Gates is known for excavating abandoned buildings such as St Laurence for new meaning, and previously exhibited a statue of the patron saint.

For his pavilion, Gates was inspired by the ‘transcendental environment’ of the Rothko Chapel in Houston, Texas – home to 14 dark-hued paintings by abstract expressionist Mark Rothko. Gates’ new series of seven tar paintings – using layered, blow-torched roofing materials that reference his late father’s trade as a roofer – live in his Black Chapel. The artist knows that light is powerful. The history of the Rothko Chapel set an artistic precedent for this lesson: for almost five decades, the light in this chapel was not right. The Texas sun blasted through the original transparent skylight, obliterating the vision of dusky paintings and hindering the spiritual encounter Rothko envisioned for the space. 

In Black Chapel, Gates has achieved a resolve and a future-thinking piece that honours many legacies. The oculus anointing us with grey London light is a poignant reminder of the power of nature, and of looking up. It is a window to consider an ever-changing world; as sunlight brings joy, and the nocturnal sky fascinates with a sense of the unknown, we too can be blinded by the light, and overpowered by nature. Historically, religions have used these experiences of light to emphasise the mysticism of their deities, echoing this idea in the design of buildings. Here, Gates encourages us to consider the mysticism of contemporary life.

The interaction of lightness and blackness in the chapel thus conjures a socio-political juxtaposition and focus. Bathed in the grey-white light from our cloudy skies, it is a place for all to congregate, and a welcoming gesture to the Black community. Looking up, we consider all that we hope for. We all look at the same sky – we always have. 

Gates’ chapel is a unifying devotion to the spiritual as a force to connect, provide safety, and encourage thinking beyond the limits of this world. Urgent and politically ambitious, Black Chapel believes in inspiration and healing as a catalyst for progression. Gates, who is dedicated to a social practice that revives communities, has brought his spirit to London. Let the legacy unfold.

INFORMATION

Black Chapel is on view at the Serpentine in Kensington Gardens until 16 October 2022. serpentinegalleries.org

Serpentine Galleries has revealed plans for its 2022 pavilion, titled Black Chapel, designed by American artist and urban planner Theaster Gates, with the architectural support of Adjaye Associates.

In a design rendering released today, 3 February, the pavilion – which will follow Counterspace’s installation for the annual commission last year – appears as a towering cylindrical structure bisected by a pair of rectangular doorways, with a domed roof that culminates in a single oculus. A low wooden barrier lines one side of the pathway to the pavilion, likewise paved in wood, leading to a panelled façade. The structural honesty of the design – there’s fluted exterior above the panelling and visible frameworks on the interior – contrasts with its considerable scale and deft manipulation of natural light. An accompanying statement describes the pavilion as ‘a sanctuary-like environment for reflection and communion’.

Serpentine Pavilion 2022: a space for music, poetry and dance

While the Serpentine Pavilion 2022 structure is predominantly in wood (which has a lower carbon footprint than brick), its form is reminiscent of the great kilns of Stoke-on-Trent, the ceramics capital of the UK. As such, the pavilion serves as the final chapter of ‘The Question of Clay’, a multi-venue presentation by Gates that previously included solo London art exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery and White Cube Mason’s Yard, as well as an intervention at the V&A ceramics galleries.

A bell, originating from Chicago’s St Laurence Church, will be placed at the pavilion’s entrance. Following the church’s demolition, Gates salvaged various architectural elements including the bell for his installation Martyr Construction at the 2015 Venice Biennale. At Kensington Gardens, the bell will once again toll to announce performances and activations, including Park Nights, the Serpentine’s programme of live encounters in music, poetry and dance.

The pavilion shares its title – Black Chapel – with an installation that Gates presented at Munich’s Haus der Kunst in 2019, at the invitation of the late museum director and curator Okwui Enwezor. Gates had filled the museum’s central atrium with ‘artefacts of Blackness from my life, to demonstrate the power embedded in the Black experience,’ he explained at the time. By naming the pavilion after his previous installation, Gates wishes to acknowledge ‘the role that sacred music and the sacred arts have had on my practice, and the collective quality of these emotional and communal initiatives.’  

The new Black Chapel brings together multiple facets of Gates’ life and work – his spiritual upbringing, his passion for music (he sang in the church choir, and continues to perform with his band, The Black Monks), his exploration of the joys and pains of Black life, and his ceramic art practice. It also reflects his fascination with architecture and placemaking, as seen in his lifelong quest to revitalise Chicago’s South Side one derelict building at a time.

‘I have always wanted to build spaces that consider the power of sound and music as a healing mechanism and emotive force that allows people to enter a space of deep reflection and deep participation,’ he says. To minimise its environmental impact, Black Chapel has been designed to be fully demountable. There are plans to re-site the pavilion to a permanent location after four months in Kensington Gardens, so it can serve as a space for gathering and contemplation in years to come.

INFORMATION

serpentinegalleries.org; theastergates.com

Visual identity for the V&A exhibition ’Alice: Curious and Curiouser’, by Hingston Studio. Video courtesy of Hingston Studio

Art director and graphic designer Tom Hingston is best known for his work with the world’s top musical artists, including Nick Cave, Grace Jones, The Chemical Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Lady Gaga and Massive Attack. He’s also widely respected in the world of Wallpaper*, creating visual identities and campaigns for the likes of Christian Dior, Orlebar Brown and Veuve Clicquot. Here, he tells us about three recent projects: visual identities for the Serpentine Galleries and the ‘Alice: Curious and Curiouser’ exhibition at the V&A museum, as well as the newsstand cover of our August 2021 issue, dedicated to Design for a Better World. 

Tom Hingston and Serpentine Galleries

Ahead of Serpentine Galleries’ 50th anniversary celebrations, Hingston Studio was commissioned to redesign its visual identity in 2019, replacing a much lauded Pentagram design that was introduced in 2013. The brief, which proved prescient when the Covid-19 pandemic compelled cultural institutions to move into the digital realm, was to create a digital-first identity, with ‘a dynamic presence and a greater level of flexibility across multiple platforms’.

Hingston recalls he was drawn to ‘the notion that the urgent voice of the gallery, with its location in London’s Hyde Park, known for its history of protest and free speech, would be coupled with this sense of nature and openness to surround it. Space to think and breathe.’

He created a modular identity to reflect Serpentine Galleries’ duality – championing cutting-edge art and ideas in serene surroundings, occupying a small space compared to its peers while punching well above its weight. The flexible construction of his visual system, and of the individual letterforms, ‘allows a process of deconstruction, a kind of open invitation for artists and practitioners to reinterpret the identity in infinite ways’. On a more practical level, it also lends itself to versatile applications across social media, on the galleries’ website, digital screens within physical spaces, and the physical spaces themselves.

As part of his research, Hingston looked at patterns found in nature – growth rings from trees, wind patterns, the movement of water, and light passing through leaves – and then applied these behavioural characteristics to the typographic system. The headline typeface is bespoke, with bold, condensed letterforms that evoke strength and urgency. Its title, Platanus, derives from the Latin name for the London Plane tree, which dominates the treescape of Hyde Park. ‘Knowing that it will predominantly be in-house teams who use [it] on a day-to-day basis, the naming serves as a gentle reminder to the relationship the identity has to the park and its surrounding environment,’ Hingston says.

Within the wordmark, Hingston introduced radial cuts to the Platanus letterforms, adding a sense of movement and further referencing the irregular geography of the Serpentine Lake. Elsewhere, Platanus is complemented by two existing typefaces – Schick Toikka’s Noe, with large, wedge-shaped serifs that come to a sharp point; and Michael Mischler’s T-Star, a subtler sans serif with laterally flattened, round basic forms. 

Rounding off the system is an extended series of glyphs, including functional elements such as arrows and wayfinding symbols, and more playful forms that serve to add character and personality. As Hingston explains, ‘some reference the motifs you might find in the surrounding element, others act as a playful punctuation to the information system’.

serpentinegalleries.org

‘Alice: Curious and Curiouser’ at the V&A museum

A stone’s throw from Serpentine Galleries, Hingston has designed the visual identity for the V&A’s blockbuster exhibition, ‘Alice: Curious and Curiouser’. The show explores the origins, adaptations and reinventions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, charting its evolution from manuscript to a global sensation, so its identity is suitably ambitious. 

The museum wanted ‘to express its own interpretation of this iconic cultural figure, but also connect in a much wider sense with a multigenerational audience’, says Hingston. The timings of the show added to the burden of expectation; originally scheduled for 2020, it wound up opening in May 2021, when London’s museums could finally welcome the general public again after many months of closure: ‘So the campaign had to serve a dual purpose – announcing the Alice show, but also welcoming visitors back into the physical space.’

The messaging was complex, ‘and rather than try and work around that, we made a strategic decision to embrace it in a celebratory manner and flip the conventional hierarchy – text and messaging would become hero’, Hingston recalls. So it made sense to explore historical examples of design that featured a contrasting mix of messaging and typography; in particular, vintage circus posters with proclamations such as ‘roll up, roll up’, and ‘the greatest show is coming to town’. These posters would offer an expressive framework for the language of the Alice show, but also offer an opportunity to introduce various characters from the book. 

Within the visual identity, the calls to action became ‘Step Into Wonderland!’, ‘See the Amazing…’ and ‘Don’t be Late!’ Another departure from the vintage circus posters is the use of a sans serif, condensed font, which puts a fresh spin on the typology and allows it to feel more elastic in behaviour.

‘Different segments of messaging are treated as a series of building blocks, which are reconfigured, scaled and stretched to fit any given format in both digital and print. This in turn makes reference to the book’s famed exploration of perspective and shifting scales and size,’ Hingston explains.

Complementing the typography is a cast of characters from the book, including Alice herself, the rabbit, and the caterpillar. The two animals were created in collaboration with BAFTA-nominated puppeteers Jonny & Will in another meticulous process. Natural references such as fur textures and caterpillar skin were developed into sketches and then clay maquettes, and finally remodelled in CGI so they could be moved and manipulated in any way necessary for the visual design. 

Meanwhile, Alice was cast as a young actress who was filmed in live action, always from behind so her face would be concealed. ‘Alice means so many different things to so many different people, [so] maintaining this level of ambiguity around her character, whilst also retaining some obvious visual clues in her wardrobe, was essential to us.’ 

Hingston’s identity went beyond the V&A’s walls and promotional material to include the main entrance to the show, which leads down the striking wooden staircase in the museum’s Exhibition Road Quarter by AL_A. ‘It was an opportunity to transform the entrance into something more unexpected,’ explains Hingston. ‘We designed a glyph set of arrows which could act as a signposting device to help guide visitors in and down the space. These multidirectional arrows were also a nod back to the book itself – where Alice is being pushed and pulled along different paths.’ 

‘Alice: Curious and Curiouser’, until 31 December 2021, Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London, vam.ac.uk

the V&A’s ‘Alice: Curious and Curiouser’ exhibition, and his newsstand cover for Wallpaper’s August 2021 issue

Wallpaper* August 2021 issue cover

Wallpaper’s relationship with Hingston dates back a decade – he was first interviewed in our April 2011 issue about a bespoke typeface and phone icons he’d created for a new Danish mobile phone company called Æsir, and in 2012 he was one of 30 cover artists (selected from 20,000 submissions) for our August Handmade issue. We have long been admirers of his ability to combine striking typography and distinctive forms with contextual rigour, so when we decided that we wanted a typographic newsstand cover for our August 2021 ‘Design for a Better World’ issue, he was our first port of call.

‘It’s wonderful to be invited back to create a cover for what is the new Handmade initiative – it’s a fantastic issue, featuring some incredible thinkers. Plus I share the honour with Piet Oudolf [who created the issue’s limited-edition cover], of whom I’m a big fan,’ says Hingston.

The issue celebrates the creative leaders and projects that are addressing some of the biggest challenges and concerns of our time – among them the Turner-Prize nominated Cooking Sections, who advocate for more sustainable food supply chains, architect Fernanda Canales, whose social housing encourages us to reconsider the meaning of luxury, and artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen, whose epic VR experiences foster attention and engagement with the natural world. In response, Hingston wanted to ‘convey this notion of something that was incomplete, or a work in progress’.

Hingston and his team recalled their early development work for the Serpentine:

We were talking a lot about this notion of flexible systems, or rather, frameworks that were open and invited re-interpretation. That concept definitely seemed to resonate with the themes of the issue, as does the idea of something which is evolving or fluid

The cover typeface, which Hingston had started to draw in 2020 as part of the Serpentine identity, takes on a new appearance: ‘The more open letterforms invite the viewer to fill in the gaps, so there’s an interesting game at play here.’ Because the letterforms are of equal width, they could be treated like a series of building blocks that shift around the grid, which allowed for a more dynamic configuration – two of the lines are indented, and there is a double space between ‘for’ and ‘a’.

Early iterations of the cover design were two-dimensional, ‘about plotting points, defining parameters, and then testing how much or how little was needed to retain legibility’. But Hingston eventually decided on three-dimensional forms, to suggest ‘something more architectural, more physical, like an emerging structure’.

Unlike Platanus, the Wallpaper* cover typeface doesn’t yet have a name. ‘It’s an evolving identity, so I’m sure it will continue to take on a number of manifestations in future projects,’ Hingston says. ‘We’ve also been discussing the possibility of making it freely available. I’m interested in how other designers or individuals might choose to interpret the template.’

The August 2021 issue of Wallpaper* is now available as a free PDF download

INFORMATION

hingston.net

With thanks to Gillian McVey

As the world digests the contents of the recent UN report on climate change, the book 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth by Serpentine Galleries’ artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist and curator Kostas Stasinopoulos couldn’t have been published at a more fitting time. 

Born out of Serpentine Galleries’ long-term project Back to Earth, the book includes a compendium of recipes, sketches, photographs, essays, spells and instructions that urge us to engage with the climate emergency in new and imaginative ways in our daily lives. With contributions from 140 artists, scientists, architects and filmmakers, the book follows a ‘do-it-yourself’ guide on how to shape a more ecological and equitable future. 140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth offers innovative ways to rethink our relationship with our environment and change our actions accordingly, from some of the most creative minds of our generation.

Gustav Metzger who is renowned for his efforts to tackle climate change and raise awareness up until his death in 2017 was the inspiration behind the book. Artist James Bridle, who coined the term New Aesthetic, shows us how to assist a plant’s climate change migration journey by carrying them to a new spot. Meanwhile, musician Cosmo Sheldrake offers instructions on making ancient inks and Australian performance artists ask that we bury bananas. Alejandro González Iñárritu wants to get everyone involved by offering a manual for immigrants. Other featured artists include Olafur Eliasson, Etel Adnan, Pedro Reyes, Judy Chicago, Black Quantum Futurism Collective, Vivienne Westwood and Marina Abramović. 

The book is published to coincide with the multi-year initiative Serpentine Galleries project, Back to Earth. The programme is a catalyst for change which focuses on ecology and rather than supporting escape strategies from Earth, reserved for the few, it roots itself firmly in the realities of the ground we walk on. In a complex web of interconnected research, intervention and activities, the new book weaves in interdisciplinary knowledge to explore pressing questions: what new ecosystems can foster agency within exisitng ecosystems? And what kinds of collaborative working practices are necessary to present clear responses to complex problems?

INFORMATION

140 Artists’ Ideas for Planet Earth, £9.99. serpentinegalleries.org

penguin.co.uk

Looking at each individual project by Sumayya Vally, it’s hard to pinpoint a ‘signature’ look or subject. There are installations, film and sound pieces, projects around food, community-focused schemes, fine art research, and traditional building works. Yet zoom out and examine her portfolio as a whole and her fascination with the ‘city’ becomes clear. Listening to her talk reveals even more: Vally is ‘obsessed with Joburg’.

Vally grew up in an apartheid-era township in Pretoria called Laudium. She credits the tight-knit community, ‘strong urban atmosphere’, and her experiences of going to a Muslim school from a young age and living in a relatively small space with informing her sense of community and city. Witnessing many people transcending that small-town context, through their work or studies, also played its role.

But it was Johannesburg that shaped Vally’s architectural approach and her passion for urban space. She often spent holidays with her grandfather, who owned a store in the city. Eventually she studied for the second part of her architecture degree there (architecture studies in South Africa include two parts in university, usually split by a break in practice). During this time, she admits to being completely taken by the varied, rich, urban environment of South Africa’s largest city. ‘I was obsessed with the city; reading it, understanding it, drawing it, filming it, absorbing it,’ she recalls. ‘I became really concerned that, after graduating, I would lose what that felt like, and that is how Counterspace was born, as a response, refusing to become jaded.’ Vally set up her practice in Johannesburg in 2015.

Working in the city before completing her studies– practising architecture at an NGO, and conducting research and installation projects for several national museums – proved transformative. ‘I had a lot more exposure to what was actually going on in the city,’ says Vally. ‘Seeing how people find ways to function economically, understanding ritual practices of the city – seeing how belief systems, for example, filter down into how people live. This can birth different or new kinds of architecture that we may not be focusing on in school. This is really rich ground to create architecture.’ And why shouldn’t buildings be created by taking into account different uses and ways of life? This is exactly the point between formal and informal architectural space- and place-making that Vally likes to unpick. ‘My work is focused on how architecture can be social and public and inclusive and diverse, but it’s from the perspective of a deep social project. There is this layer about history, future and archive that is left out [of mainstream architecture] at the moment.’ 

Over the years, Vally explored multiple areas of Johannesburg, choosing different communities to focus on. All of these places influenced her practice, she admits. There is Bree Street, an economic hub for the Ethiopian and Eritrean diaspora, which helped her understand forms of trade in the city; and Ntemi Piliso Street, home to her grandfather’s store, where she spent much of her childhood and first encountered Basotho textiles, and their ‘language’ and meanings.

Using this kind of ‘urban reading’, zooming in and out of cultural hotspots of activity, Vally followed her instinct and picked work that allowed her to develop her interests – a lot of it in the realm of research. In 2018, she worked with Yale University’s Denise Lim on the archive of artist Mikhael Subotzky (who shot the portraits on these pages) – in particular, his collection of trash from Ponte City. Created in 1976, the 54-storey cylindrical building (W*80) became iconic in Johannesburg, starting off as a desirable place for European expats, but later designated a ‘grey zone’ (an apartheid-era term for areas where people of colour could live). It changed character completely during the last decades of the 20th century, due to population shifts and the political situation in the country, becoming home to people from all over the world. Subotzky and artist Patrick Waterhouse collected the rubbish left behind when developers bought the building in 2008 and started to clean it out; the pair’s project is now part of the collection at SFMOMA.

Johannesburg’s infamous mine dumps (great mounds of waste on the sites of disused mines) in Booysens, Soweto, East Rand and West Rand also attracted Vally’s attention. Her research on the dumps and surrounding issues – socio-economic systems, belief systems, toxicity, racism, climate change – and how they affect the formation of cities, became a display at the inaugural Chicago Architecture Biennial in 2015. ‘It is a reminder of how segregated our city is,’ she says. Later, a pigment research part of the project became the Folded Skies mirror installation for the Spier Light Art festival in Stellenbosch in 2018.

‘I worked on researching how to recycle the mine dust and pigments from run-off to tint mirrors to reflect the colours of Johannesburg skies at different times in the day,’ says Vally. ‘There is a myth in Joburg that our skies and our sunsets are iridescent because of all the toxic dust.’

The city’s Yeoville Market, Fordsburg and Little Mogadishu in Mayfair, home to South Asian and Muslim immigrants, have a particular significance in Vally’s Pan African Plates, an ongoing project looking at how different communities gather around food. North-east of Pretoria in Mapoch, a village that maintains the traditions of the Ndebele people, she learned about the culture’s shapes and their meanings, for Ndebele Geometries. The project, a mobile installation to help children learn about mathematics through the distinct shapes found in the painted façades of Ndebele homes, is currently in development.

Digging a little deeper into Vally’s projects, it becomes clear that there are strong, common threads running through all of them – the notion of archive; ideas of coexistence and mixing of cultures, segregation and common ground; and how our background, be it cultural or political, can affect the way we live and structure our urban environment. These are themes that tie strongly into Johannesburg life as Vally experiences it, but also life in South Africa as a whole. ‘The nature of growing up in South Africa certainly informed my practice,’ she says. ‘On the home scale, the community scale, the urban scale, in the way I think about segregation.’ They are also themes that feel universal and can apply to anywhere migration has taken place – which is, on some level, most places.

This layering of design, history, culture and archival research in the creation of architectural output that speaks to its place and users has become a speciality for Counterspace. In 2019, Vally was invited to apply her perspective to the annual Serpentine Pavilion in London. Counterspace is the youngest studio to be awarded the commission; the pavilion will be the first built work of its kind by the fast-emerging practice. Delayed by the pandemic, it will be unveiled this year.

While Vally’s proposal includes the traditional physical structure (in this case to be made of cork and bricks from recycled construction waste), the project has grown branches that reach far beyond the pavilion’s usual remit at Kensington Gardens. ‘I didn’t want it to be an aesthetic manifestation, but I felt that it needed to be a representation of my ethos as a practice,’ she says. ‘I wanted to bring other voices into the pavilion.’ Rather than working on the physical structure first, Vally approached the concept from the opposite direction. ‘The intent to read, and draw in other places and neighbourhoods came first, and then I went into the form-making of the pavilion,’ she explains.

She researched migrant communities in London and photographed a series of spaces, especially gathering places, that represent, or used to represent, various migration waves and groups. ‘Some of the places existed but have now been erased,’ she says, flagging up as examples areas in Brixton, Hackney, Edgware Road and North Kensington. Her research includes anything from event posters to music records. Spaces of cultural production that, she feels, were not widely recognised at the level they deserved, play a prominent role. Case studies include one of the first venues to play Black music in the UK, the Four Aces Club in Dalston; the Centerprise publishing house that was a centre for the West Indian community; the Theatre of Black Women (Britain’s first Black women’s theatre company, operating during the 1980s); the iconic Mangrove Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill; the first mosque in London; and informal venues, such as the sites of festivals and sidewalk events.

Vally treated the pavilion as a place to bring these forms of gathering and cultural manifestation together and into Hyde Park in an abstracted form. It is a design planned to encourage both one-on-one and larger encounters, both organised (through a programme of events) and casual – all this, of course, planned before the pandemic hit. ‘Now there are different kinds of opportunities to engage with, and we are developing projects that will have a life of their own, beyond the pavilion,’ she says. Counterspace’s Serpentine Pavilion is currently planned to go ahead for a June opening, unless the pandemic throws another unexpected curveball; either way, its intention and spirit are emblematic of Vally’s approach to architecture.

Meanwhile, more built work is underway – a mixeduse building in the Crown Mines area of Johannesburg is due to complete this year. Larger-scale architecture, cultural projects in particular, is something Sumayya Vally is keen to focus on in the future. ‘The slowness of research, the faster pace of installations, and then building too – all these speeds catalyse and inform each other,’ she says. Eventually, it all feeds back to the city, how we read it and how we push it, and the discipline of architecture, forward – in Joburg, and beyond. 

INFORMATION

counterspace-studio.com

In an innovative and practical response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2020 Serpentine Pavilion designed by Johannesburg-based practice Counterspace has been extended into a two-year commission. This is the first time since the annual architecture programme was founded 20 years ago that such a move has been made. Instead, commission recipients – directed by architects Sumayya Vally, Sarah de Villiers and Amina Kaskar – will use the additional time to collaborate with the Serpentine on a series of off-site and digital research projects throughout 2020, culminating in the opening of the Pavilion in summer 2021.

Sir David Adjaye OBE, who is a Serpentine Galleries trustee and the Serpentine Pavilion advisor, said: ‘Rather than rush to execute Counterspace’s stellar design as soon as it is safe to do so, the Serpentine has accepted the slowness reshaping society today and utilised it to develop a deeper relationship with the architects’. He adds: ‘While the circumstances that have prompted this evolution are by no means easy, we believe it is an important opportunity for this Pavilion to stand as a bridge of sorts between either sides of this unfathomably significant time in history.'

Lead architect Vally also welcomes the decision. ‘We've always relied on places of gathering to come together and we miss them when they're gone. Covid-19 has brought the Pavilion themes of community and gathering sharply into focus – allowing us the opportunity to extend and deepen our engagement process over two years.'

Serpentine Pavilion 2020 designed by Counterspace. Design Render, Exterior View © Counterspace

Though specific details of the digital and off-site programming have not yet been announced, Vally hints at what to expect from the extended collaboration. ‘We are excited to launch a set of initiatives that will redefine and celebrate the role of gathering and the construction and preservation of belonging in times of crisis – reversing the original procession, so that a cascade of dialogues, events, programmes and fragments of the Pavilion will pop-up incrementally in real and digital space over the course of 2020 coming together in 2021 in Kensington Gardens to form Pavilion 20 plus 1.'

The well-timed response comes as cultural organisations around the world are adapting to the new normal. Wallpaper* has commissioned a series of longform articles from our network of international editors, who offer insight to how the cultural community in their territory is responding, with positivity and hope. You can read the World View series here.

Wood permeates our everyday lives in a variety of different guises. It is all around us, not only in its obvious original state as the furniture we sit on and in the buildings we inhabit, but also in less obvious forms made possible through chemical processes which enable it to be used as an ingredient in things like paint, cosmetics and LCD screens. To understand the impact that our voracious consumption of this material has on our planet, we need to go back along the supply chain to the source, which is exactly where Italian designers Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of Amsterdam-based Studio Formafantasma take us in an exhibition at London's Serpentine Gallery.

The exhibition, entitled Cambio, has just reopened and focuses on the governance of the extraction of timber from forests. The survey connects science, conservation, engineering and policy making and calls into question the role that design can play in shaping a better and more sustainable future.

Cambio

This title references the membrane that runs around the trunk of trees, which produces bark on the outside and wood on the inside. In a nod to this cambium layer, the exhibition's layout follows a concentric structure with two rooms at its centre. Here visitors will find interviews with specialists and a series of films made by Formafantasma. These include a monologue written and delivered by philosopher and author Emanuele Coccia. Spoken from the perspective of a tree, the monologue addresses the entire human race.

‘It presents a reversal of the power structures on the planet where you start to question who is in control,’ explains Formafantasma's Simone Farresin. ‘It's not just a provocation - it's an invitation to start to think about what we do on the planet as a shared experience. As designers we can no longer think that our role is only to fulfil human desires and needs.’

The origin and lifetime of wood

In the outer spaces of the gallery, an intense forest scent designed by Sissel Tolaas fills the air and brings the exhibits to life. As visitors enter, they are confronted with the trunk of a huge oak tree from Garnstone Forest in Herefordshire which has been cut into planks and air dried ready for use. The majestic display captures the tree in the transition phase from living being to object while also bringing a sense of scale to the showcase.

Nearby, a series of wooden objects and contemporary products collected from Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands are displayed. Each one has been forensically tested to reveal the origin of the wood within it, and the startling results are presented on the wall. The findings reveal how protected and even endangered tree species are being used for cheap applications, such as ping pong paddles or charcoal for barbecues.

‘It's an invitation to start to think about what we do on the planet as a shared experience’

In another display the designers chart the correlation between the amount of CO2 contained in an object and the amount of time the object would need to be used for to offset its carbon. For instance, a stool made from a fast-growing tree should last for 60 years, while a stool made from an oak tree would need a lifespan of more than 120 years.

‘We conceived the show as the beginning of the project rather than an end,’ explains Farresin. ‘We wanted to put the research at the forefront.’

Material research

Despite the focus being firmly on thought processes, the studio has designed a series of furniture pieces specifically to display the research materials. A series of simple tables, stools, desks, chairs and bookshelves are made from pine wood harvested from Val di Fiemme – a forest in northern Italy that was destroyed in 2018 by a storm caused by climate change. Over 13 million spruce trees were felled by the powerful winds.

‘The entire exhibition uses the wood from one tree,’ explains Farresin. ‘Pine is a very soft wood so we wanted to embrace that. We applied a varnish that is ordinarily used in the manufacture of musical instruments so that the surface becomes more durable. It's a transparent varnish with a little light grey that gives the pine a slightly "foggy” appearance.’

Formafantasma are no strangers to in-depth material research projects that examine design's political and ecological responsibilities. Previous investigations have included a two-year research project into e-waste, a collection of furniture made from lava, and objects made from discarded leather, cereal and natural polymers. At the same time, they have completed commercial projects for companies such as Turkish glassware brand Nude and Italian lighting manufacturers, Flos.

Going forward, the duo want to separate the two arms of their business more fully. The investigative, independent and research-based projects will become a focus, and where possible, they will filter this knowledge through to more commercial projects.

‘It's about finding the right partners and making it work economically,’ says Farresin. ‘We want to separate the two but every once in a while have them cross over so that there is a moment in which the two halves communicate and feed each other.’

‘As designers we can no longer think that our role is only to fulfill human desires and needs.’

Design at Serpentine Galleries

Cambio is the third exhibition of design in the gallery's history. It marks a shift in its programming to offer a platform to those practices who embrace radical approaches to design. The aim is to shine a light on designers' thought processes and approaches rather than showcase the finished objects and products. This chimes perfectly with Formafantasma's ethos, and Trimarchi and Farresin reveal that this is the first time they have been invited to curate an exhibition without the expectation that it will result in a collection or object.

‘Spaces like this one allow design to live beyond the finished product,’ praises Farresin. ‘In this case we can begin a conversation about the consequences of design at large, and I think that it's a conversation that is very much needed.’

INFORMATION

‘Formafantasma: Cambio’ is on view until 17 May at Serpentine Sackler Gallery

serpentinegalleries.org

With a team of directors under 30, Johannesburg-based practice Counterspace is the youngest group of architects ever selected to design the Serpentine Pavilion. This year's awaited pavilion will comprise a spliced structure, based on community spaces around the city of London.

The annual architecture commission of a temporary structure is located on the lawn outside the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Kensington gardens. Open 11 June-11 October 2020, it will be constructed from cork and K-Briqs, which are made without firing, from 90 per cent demolition and construction waste.

The all-woman lead team is lead by its three directors, Sumayya Vally, Sarah de Villiers and Amina Kaska who all turn 30 this year. The trio vows that the pavilion, now its 20th year, to be one of the most sustainable to date. Previous winners of the commission include Zaha Hadid, Francis Kéré, Toyo Ito and Frank Gehry.

Counterspace’s concept poses a question: How can architecture create a space where we are all linked, not ranked? In answer, Counterspace’s architectural forms will include small, moveable parts, which will eventually be used beyond Kensington Gardens to create a series of local community events, before being returned to the structure.

Distinctions in colour and texture between different parts of the pavilion will reference migrant communities from London, such as Brixton, Hoxton, Hackney, Whitechapel, Edgware Road, Peckham, Ealing, North Kensington. Sumayya Vally says: ‘The pavilion is itself conceived as an event — the coming together of a variety of forms from across London over the course of the Pavilion’s sojourn. These forms are imprints of some of the places, spaces and artefacts which have made care and sustenance part of London’s identity.’

With the idea pointing towards inclusivity, the pavilion will be closely integrated with both the institution's art and architecture programs this summer, connecting with the Serpentine’s ambitious multi-platform project Back to Earth that will invite artists’ response to the ever-pressing climate emergency.

Vally adds: ‘Places of memory and care in and beyond are transferred onto the Serpentine lawn. Where they intersect, they produce spaces to be together’. 

INFORMATION

The Serpentine Pavilion 2020 is on view from 11 June. serpentinegalleries.org

‘Everything departs from the rhinoceros horn! Everything departs from Jan Vermeer’s The Lacemaker! Everything ends up in the cauliflower!’ Salvador Dalí once proclaimed to a rapt audience of 2,000 listeners at a lecture in Paris. As the story goes, the Spanish surrealist artist had driven to Sorbonne University in his Rolls-Royce Phantom – stuffed to the brim with 500kg of cauliflower.

These days, artists are still using Rolls-Royce cars as a canvas (albeit with less whiffy results) by virtue of the car marque’s art programme, which has realised commissions by Tomas Saráceno, Dan Holdsworth, Pipilotti Rist and Ugo Rondinone among others since its inception in 2014. Ever forward-thinking, Rolls-Royce invited friends and art devotees to the Serpentine Galleries during Frieze to reveal a fresh vision for its art programme.

Simply named Muse, the programme will branch out with two new biennial initiatives: the Dream Commission and the Spirit of Ecstasy Challenge. ‘As we look to the future, Muse will enable us to continue this legacy with a vision to expand the horizon of moving image and ignite a dialogue with some of the most exciting creative visionaries of our time,’ noted Torsten Müller-Ötvös, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars chief executive.

The cornerstone of Muse, the Dream Commission supports moving-image works created by emerging and mid-career artists in a two-phase process. A shortlist of four artists – nominated by a panel of art-world doyens – will vie for the commission, with an expert jury of curators, artists and museum directors selecting the final winner. Fittingly, the initiative is presented in partnership with two major art institutions: the Fondation Beyeler in Basel and the Serpentine Galleries in London.

The nominators include Daniel Birnbaum, director of Acute Art; artist Cao Fei; Zachary Kaplan, executive director of Rhizome; curator Pablo León de la Barra; and Suhanya Raffel, director of M+ museum. The jury is made up of artist Julien Isaac; Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries; Katrina Sedgwick, museum director of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image; Terrie Sultan, museum director of Parrish Art Museum; and Theodora Vischer, senior curator at Fondation Beyeler.

Meanwhile, the Spirit of Ecstasy Challenge will see leading creatives from the spheres of architecture, art, fashion, design and craft reimagine the sculptural figurine that has adorned the bonnet of every Rolls-Royce car for over a century, based on a chosen material – in the first instance, textile. The inaugural three participants will be announced in late 2019 and the commissions will be presented in 2020, before proceeding on a global tour.

INFORMATION

rolls-roycemotorcars.com; serpentinegalleries.org; fondationbeyeler.ch

There's one event that signals beyond a shadow of a doubt that the summer is here; the annual launch of the Serpentine Gallery's Pavilion. And the time has now arrived, with this year's offering, designed by Japanese architect Junya Ishigami, now complete and launching this week in London's Kensington Gardens. 

Drawing inspiration from one of the most common architectural feats – the roof – the Serpentine Pavilion this year appears like a grey cloud, shifting weightlessly in the breeze. In reality, the structure is made by (probably rather weighty) dark coloured slates, arranged in a single canopy, which stands on slim, ethereal columns; in keeping with the architect's signature style of delicate drawing and graceful forms. 

Inside, a cave-like space offers room for resting and contemplation – as well as shelter from the elements during the unpredictable, weather-wise, British summer. Its use is inherently open ended, says Serpentine Galleries artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist: ‘It’s an open situation, we never know how the public will use it, and it’s free and here for everyone'.

Through the design, Ishigami aims to juxtapose the man-made and the natural, he explains. ‘My design for the Pavilion plays with our perspectives of the built environment against the backdrop of a natural landscape, emphasising a natural and organic feel as though it had grown out of the lawn, resembling a hill made out of rocks', the architect said when he first revealed 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.'  

Still, the project did not come without its challenges, and time and perfection in detailing and construction were key ones, as Ishigami admits. ‘I was very worried about completing this project in such a short time – most of my projects take a very long time to make. This year was the hardest in my life!' he says, probably only half-joking. 

Ishigami's design follows last year's acclaimed edition by Mexican architect Frida Escobedo. With it, the Japanese architect earns a coveted membership at the club of select architects from around the world, who have worked on a Serpentine Pavilion before – including Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Sou Fujimoto and Bjarke Ingels.

One of the project's goals has always been to promote great architecture, inspire and delight, and Ishigami aimed for his design to do just that. ‘I imagined it as a dark cloud in the sky', he says. ‘I would like people to also come here and imagine.'

INFORMATION

serpentinegalleries.org

Junya Ishigami has been revealed as the designer of the next Serpentine Pavilion in London, which opens on 20 June 2019. The Japanese architect is the 19th participant to design a temporary summer pavilion for the Serpentine Gallery lawn. 

Ishigami, who worked at SANAA before founding his own practice in 2004, is known for his experimental, naturalistic forms inspired by the earth, the elements and nature. His approach – defined by his ‘free space’ philosophy – seeks to recreate the patterns and biological devices of nature within man-made structures.

His Serpentine Pavilion design will emerge from the earth of Kensington Gardens, growing into a roof canopy that shelters a cave-like space beneath it, forming a quiet refuge. The pavilion’s roof made of multiple slates will be the main architectural device. Ishigami was inspired by the integral role that the simple ‘roof' plays in architecture across the world.

Inside, the cave-like space will aim to provide a space for contemplation. Ishigami has previously been inspired by caves, as seen in the manmade recreation of natural erosion in his House/Restaurant in Yamaguchi.

‘My design for the Pavilion plays with our perspectives of the built environment against the backdrop of a natural landscape, emphasising a natural and organic feel as though it had grown out of the lawn, and resembling a hill made out of rocks,' Ishigami explains. ‘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 away in the breeze, the cluster of scattered rock levitates, like a billowing piece of fabric’.

Ishigami’s dream-like creations were the subject of a solo show at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain in 2018, which will travel to the Power Station in Shanghai later this year. The exhibition displayed 20 of Ishigami’s past, current and future projects through large-scale models, accompanied by drawings and film, opening up insight into his extremely varied and unconventional works. It will be a joy to have an Ishigami-designed architectural experience in London for the first time. Zaha Hadid was the first architect to design a Serpentine Pavilion in 2000, and ever since, it has been bringing new architects to London who have never previously built in the UK. We have no doubt that Ishigami’s pavilion design will follow the success of the previous couple of years’ pavilions – Frida Escobedo (2018) and Francis Kéré (2017) – which brought with them new approaches to architecture and each opened up unique debates on design. Ishigami was selected by Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of Serpentine Galleries, and Yana Peel, Serpentine Galleries CEO, alongside advisors including David Adjaye and Richard Rogers.

INFORMATION

The Serpentine Pavillion will be on view from 20 June to 6 October 2019. For more information, visit the Serpentine Galleries website

ADDRESS

Kensington Gardens
London, W2 3XA

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Fashion week – in fact a continent-crossing month long whirlwind of fanciful fashion shows and runway set spectacles – is over for another season. And with its end, questions crop up regarding the relevance of the fashion show in today’s digital and environmentally aware world, and the suitability of a special effect-fuelled extravaganzas, where clothing is viewed not from up close, but a distance. The concept of how fashion is presented to the consumer – be it a runway show, a museum exhibition, or a merchandised window display – is a visual narrative which has fascinated label Atelier E.B, since it was founded by Scottish designer Beca Lipscombe and artist Lucy McKenzie in 2007.

‘We find it problematic to show our clothes,’ says Lipscombe of Atelier E.B’s designs, which explore the relaxed realms of casualwear and sportswear. ‘They aren’t spectacular, but very wearable. We’ve tried them on mannequins, we’ve toured with showrooms, and we’ve researched how people have presented garments in the past’.

This extensive investigation has culminated in ‘Atelier E.B: Passer-By’, a new three-part exhibition at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London, which explores the history of fashion display, from the cultural heritage and artistic evolution of the mannequin, to the enchanting and dying art of window dressing.

‘The exhibition title invokes the idea of window shopping, and the concept of passing through time,’ says curator Melissa Blanchflower of the show. The exhibition is also the first Serpentine show to be fully dedicated to fashion. The first section offers a well-heeled walk through the history of mannequin design and window trimming, and features rooms and vitrines bursting with artworks and installations, film and rare archival material.

Mannequin design is considered in terms of socio-political contexts including modernism, the world fairs of the 1930s and the rise of fascism, and encourages discussion of the changing shape of the desired female body over time. A 2014 reproduction of a 1955 plaster mannequin created by Charles James reflects the body type the couturier preferred to toile his designs on, while a 1923 lacquered silver sculpture by Rudolf Belling represents the streamlined and machine age-inspired athletic figure idealised during the industrialising 1920s. Pivotal figures in the art of window dressing are also celebrated, from Gene Moore who created miniature mis-en-scene for Tiffany & Co in the 1950s, to Natasha Kroll, the production designer who trimmed windows for Simpsons of Piccadilly during the 1940s.

‘I’m fascinated with the idea of mannequins as art objects,’ says McKenzie. This intrigue extends into the second element of exhibition, which culminates in a series of works by seven contemporary artists including Elizabeth Radcliffe, Anna Blessmann and Markus Selg, which uses mannequins or display devices to present pieces from Atelier E.B’s previous collections.

Radcliffe’s intricately handwoven tapestry of artist Marc Camille Chaimowicz from 2017 (whose work also features in the show), is reconfigured from a portrait into a presentation device, modelling a brooch design by the brand. A silicone cast of Blessmann’s hands holding a silk camisole and pencil skirt sits below a coil of metal covered with fluffy blue fur, a spiral which evokes both a scarf and a hanging device, and Selg’s Fractal Abyss (2008), a figurative interpretation of a classic sculpture is reimagined as a mannequin wearing a knitted jumper.

The work of Steff Norwood is not only featured in the second stage of the exhibition, but he is also the mastermind behind the design of its third stage. Here, Atelier E.B’s latest ‘Jasperwear' collection – one featuring tracksuits and merino knitwear, decorated with signs of the zodiac and gladiator’s helmets – is presented inside a Norwood-created shop window. The pieces are folded and pinned in a display created by renowned window trimmer Howard Tong.

‘It’s the perfect way to show our clothes,’ Lipscombe says. Museum goers also have the chance to see the collection up close and purchase or order the brand’s caps, knits and sportswear in a showroom open at the weekends. ‘Clothes are so interesting in their tiny details,’ Mackenzie says. Lipscombe agrees. ‘We like wearable clothing. It’s the underdog… How we choose to present it comes from our shared experience.’

INFORMATION

The ‘Atelier E.B: Passer-by’ exhibition is on view at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery until 6 January. For more information, visit the Serpentine Galleries website and the Atelier E.B website

ADDRESS

Serpentine Sackler Gallery
West Carriage Drive
London
W2 2AR

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

The 2016 Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group, has found a new life – introducing a dramatic urban development that brings BIG’s radical geometries to Toronto.

The 27-metre-long pavilion, constructed of 1800 lightweight components of fibreglass, has been installed on the site of Westbank King Street, a new building planned for the centre of Toronto that recalls the stack-of-blocks design of Moshe Safdie’s Habitat 67. The pavilion and the planned building ‘both consist of modular elements that are manipulated into something organic,' Bjarke Ingels said during a visit to Toronto. ‘In each case, we’re trying to take the ordinary and make it extraordinary.'

On September 15, the pavilion opens to the public with UNZIPPED, an exhibition of 10 BIG projects emphasising the architects’ ongoing collaborations with development company Westbank and its founder Ian Gillespie. These include two formally ambitious mixed-use towers, both under construction, and a previously unannounced infrastructure project: a biomass-fuelled power plant, for Vancouver, that will be topped with a large commercial greenhouse. In this work, ‘we try to put the basic elements of the city together in a way that creates a lively and engaging urban environment,' Ingels says.

The Toronto project – extremely unorthodox in its urban design – certainly pursues that ambition. Set in a block of Victorian industrial buildings, the structure consists of approximately 500 residential units organised into four ‘mountains', recalling the irregular stacks of Safdie’s famous structure. These rest atop office and retail space and four heritage brick buildings. 

The landscape architecture, by Canadians PUBLIC WORK, includes a central courtyard that will host live performances, and a set of trees and trellis that extend on top of the building’s many small terraces. The goal? To emphasise ‘indoor-outdoor living', Ingels says, ‘and to create a real sense of community for the residents.'

Gillespie, the developer, echoes that point. ‘Dense urban living is our future,' he says. ‘We’re exploring how architecture can make it better and more beautiful.' 

Read more about the afterlife of other Serpentine Pavilions here

INFORMATION

For more information visit the website of BIG

An 83-year-old Christo was late to our interview in February. He was busy traipsing across Kensington Gardens, battling sideways rain, scouting potential locations for The London Mastaba, which was officially unveiled this week in Hyde Park.

The giant public sculpture, tethered to the shallows of the 40-acre recreational Serpentine lake, is named after a flat-roofed structure with sloping sides that originated 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (the word ‘mastaba’ means ‘bench’ in Arabic). It features a pointillism of red and purple barrels, stacked on top of each other. At once alien and ancient, the arresting trapezoid stands like a superyacht against the water, baffling and delighting passers by. Like many of Christo’s imposing works, it has attracted a mixed reception, no small thanks to its sheer, disruptive size.

‘It weighs 600 tonnes, reaches 66ft in the air, is made up of 7,506 barrels,’ Christo explains, impressively reeling off figures as if he’s reading from a script. But its physical size, he hints, is a necessary facet of its conceptual heft. ‘The thing is not the work of art. Togetherness is the work of art. It’s the combination of the Serpentine with the bridge, with the houses and the trees, and all of the people walking around the entity.’

‘You do not see the Mastaba in a silent room,’ he continues. ‘You are among the real wind, the real heat, the real elegance of nature, the real dimensions and the logistics of society, living and moving. It’s not like we’ve just stuck a big sculpture some place random. We’ve decided how it will be seen from the bridge, from the banks of the river, from far away and up-close. All of these things are aesthetical decisions, and from each vantage point it will be different.’

The great outdoors has long fascinated Christo, who has spent much of his career to date creating expressive public work en plein air, alongside his wife Jeanne-Claude, who passed away in 2009. An exhibition of their work is being displayed concurrently at London’s Stern Pissarro Gallery until 21 July. ‘In the last 58 years, we’ve only realised 22 projects out of 47,’ Christo explains. ‘It may sound like there’s been a lot of frustration; but actually, there hasn’t. If you ask an architect how many buildings they’ve built, compared to how many they’ve tried to build, the ratio will be all the same. We build to the same complexity. Our work requires permission, a little like urban planning.’

Christo also notably self-funds all of his projects, and personally battles with governing bodies in order to receive permission to create the works. Getting the permits for The London Mastaba took over a year. Despite this great personal investment, retirement is not on the cards yet. ‘I have no stool in my studio; I stand for 16-17 hours a day. I do not know how to drive, and I do not like to talk on the telephone. I don’t know a thing about computers. I sketch and devise and create because I enjoy the physicality of it. It’s built in my system. Working makes me want to keep walking – even in the wind and the rain.’

INFORMATION

The London Mastaba is on view until 23 September. An accompanying exhibition ‘Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Barrels and The Mastaba 1958-2018’ runs until 9 September at the Serpentine Galleries. For more information, visit the Serpentine Galleries website

The Serpentine Pavilion 2018 designed by Frida Escobedo is unveiled at the Serpentine Galleries in London’s Kensington Gardens. The emerging Mexican architect is the youngest ever participant, and the second solo female architect to design a pavilion after Zaha Hadid.

Born in 1979 in Mexico City, Escobedo established a studio in her hometown 12 years ago. She has become known for her championing of Mexican design inspirations and practices.

The pavilion takes the form of a courtyard enclosed by dark latticed walls, intended as a play on the celosia – a common trope in Mexican architecture that allows breeze to flow through buildings.

‘We wanted to create this closed courtyard that is inside the park, which in turn is inside the city of London; a Russian doll of interiors. We were inspired by La Mezquita [the Mosque] in Cordoba,’ Escobedo told Wallpaper* in an exclusive interview.

The space inside feels calming and cool; a peaceful haven from nearby South Kensigton’s hustle and bustle. Open and airy from the inside, it feels secluded enough to offer a break to the weary traveller, yet still connected to the outside through the walls’ perforation that allow glimpses out and sunrays coming in. A café sits at one end, ready to serve visitors, while a shallow pool of water runs on one long side, adding to the overall serene atmosphere.

However, this was not just about creating an urban retreat; the architect also makes a comment about the passing of time and geography. The pavilion’s pivoted axis aligns with the Prime Meridian line that was established in Greenwich, London in 1851 and later became the global standard for marking time and geographical distance. ‘This is our subtle nod to that abstract idea of time and space,’ says Escobedo.

‘It is a public space, but also a platform to show what you think about space and how you want to deal with space. We have been working with temporary structures for a while now. They become little labs to test ideas on. Because they are so compressed as a project, they allow us to test, experiment and see things that we normally wouldn’t see with larger projects.’

Follow the history of the Serpentine Pavilion here

INFORMATION

The Serpentine Pavilion is on view from 15 June – 7 October 2018. For more information, visit the Serpentine Gallery website

ADDRESS

Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London
W2 3XA
UK

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

It won’t be long now before this year’s Serpentine Pavilion appears in Kensington Gardens, on the lawns outside the Serpentine Gallery. The latest edition has been designed by Sumayya Vally and her young South African practice Counterspace. The commission followed the Mexican architect Frida Escobedo (at 38 by far the youngest to take up the privilege in 2018) and Junya Ishigami in 2019. 

Further predecessors, now numbering over 20, have ended up all over the world, mostly purchased by wealthy, enlightened art collectors. 2017's version by Diébédo Francis Kéré, an architect from Burkina Faso, was snapped up by the Ilham Gallery of Kuala Lumpur and is yet to be set up in its new home somewhere in the Klang Valley region where KL is located. Such cultural cross-pollination – Kere’s pavilion has a proudly African language – has become an inadvertent outcome of a project that really started out by accident.  

In 2000, Julia Peyton-Jones, the gallery’s co-director from 1991 to 2016, asked her friend Zaha Hadid to design a temporary shelter for the Serpentine’s 30th birthday celebrations. The triangulated structure – a great success – stayed in place for three months and in the city which had silently decreed Hadid’s designs unbuildable at best, and unreadable at worst, became jokingly known as her first building in London.

Thereafter, a series of architects who had never been invited to construct in the capital – names as stellar as Oscar Niemeyer, Jean Nouvel and Rem Koolhaas – went on to create temporary shelters for the Serpentine’s summer season.

Zaha’s tent met a less than illustrious end – first it spent some time in a car park in Stratford-upon-Avon and now resides at the Flambards Theme Park in Helston, Cornwall. It is covered in a silvery grey tarpaulin, and a very popular wedding venue. And the Cloud, an ethereal architectural abstraction by the Japanese Sou Fujimoto from 2103, floated off to Albania, where it controversially stood in front of Tirana’s National Gallery and was quickly co-opted by Albanian Vodaphone as a great place to hang their advertising.

But others have gone on to find highly desirable homes. The one by Smiljan Radic, which stood like a radical pebble in Kensington Gardens in the summer of 2014, travelled to Bruton in Somerset. There it forms the perfect full-stop to gardens designed by plantsman Piet Oudolf at the Hauser & Wirth art campus of Durslade Farm. ‘It’s extraordinary – no, exceptional – to see a building in quite another situation. Usually it’s the building that stays in one place, and the landscape that changes around it,’ said Radic at the time of its re-installation, as though he had seen a ghost.

The property developer Victor Hwang took Toyo Ito’s 2002 geometric explosion off to the south of France, where it sits in the grounds of Le Beauvallon, a belle epoque chateau. ‘It’s a visual masterpiece,’ said Hwang of the project which is now surrounded by parasol pines, and next to the sea. Not far away, the Irish hotelier and developer Paddy McKillen has found a space for Frank Gehry’s equally explosive variant at Château La Coste, where it rubs shoulders with works by Tracey Emin, Richard Serra and Lee Ufan. ‘When Frank saw it here, he was really moved,‘ said McKillen of the dip in the landscape where its placed. ‘you can look down on it now, and get a real sense of its multiple perspectives.’ Stephen Rea liked it so much, he staged a Bloomsday celebration in honour of James Joyce there.

Some remain in boxes, though not for long. The multi-coloured cellophane folly by the Catalan practice SelgasCano from 2015 will be installed in Los Angeles as soon as co-working brand Second Home has set up its space in the city. Bjarke Ingels’ modular masterpiece from 2016 is to be reassembled, block by translucent fibreglass block, in Toronto by late summer. He’s Danish and practises internationally. Anyway, who cares. Suffice to say, these pavilions are definitely proving to be architecture without borders.

INFORMATION

The Serpentine Pavilion designed by Sumayya Vally and Counterspace opens in June 2021

serpentinegalleries.org

Built on a sacred site in the heart of China’s capital that has seen 500 years of culture and commerce, the first Serpentine Pavilion co-commissioned and created outside the UK opened this week in Wangfujing, Beijing. It marks the inaugural chapter of the collaboration between the institution and the Chinese property developer Hongkong Land.

The collaboration has come about after two years of intense discussion and execution. ‘This project brings a Chinese architect into the Serpentine family after 18 commissions that started with the late great Zaha Hadid,’ says Serpentine CEO Yana Peel. ‘This is the first time that we are working with a Chinese architect and taking on the pavilion is also a real cultural exchange and a dialogue with a new country.’

A selection committee led by Serpentine’s artistic director, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Peel, which brought together six prominent figures from the West and the East, including Chinese artist Wang Jianwei and director of Made in China Philip Dodd, appointed Liu Jiakun of JIAKUN Architects for the project. His proposal, a temporary pavilion, is sympathetic both to the history and culture of Beijing and to the history of the Serpentine projects. ‘We discovered Liu’s work at the Venice Architecture of Biennale in 2016, which was one of the greatest highlights of the show,’ says Obrist, ‘Liu has always connected his architecture to tradition and yet finds a very interesting way of negotiating the local and the global, and that's what he did for us here.’

Liu’s work aims to reflect the community it serves. He uses local craftsmanship to make contemporary cultural city spaces that its citizens can relate to. ‘The design, which focuses on the figure of an archer, incorporates the forces of elasticity through a series of cables stretched between steel plates’, explains Liu. ‘What we ultimately want to present is a spatial installation that goes beyond mere function to push the boundaries of contemporary architectural practice.’

‘This is not simply a franchising exercise where we just send something from A to B, which would be very disrespectful of the local context’, adds Obrist. ‘The 20th century was all about manifestos and today it is about listening. Liu has been very much attentive to the local context and tradition but yet found a very contemporary form and a 21st century way of creating for it. I think it’s what’s demanded in the world today.’ Liu’s creation has also helped to introduce a different tempo in the city; people are very often rushed but this encourages them to slow down and spend time experiencing the architecture, which is one of the core values of the Serpentine.

‘We believe in the idea of “Architecture for All”. It's a wonderful opportunity for us to build a bridge from the historic to the modern world and to create this very open platform, both of hardware and of software in terms of programming, for the next five months’, concludes Peel. The pavilion will be the focal point for a range of cultural activities, events and social encounters from now until the end of October.

INFORMATION
For more information visit the Serpentine Gallery’s website

A courtyard design that unites Britain and Mexico via a journey through space and time; an emerging Mexican architect; the youngest ever participant, and indeed only the second female one, after Zaha Hadid; there are many reasons to sit up and take notice of this year’s Serpentine Pavilion. We meet with the architect behind the 2018 design, Frida Escobedo, to find out more. 

W*: Good morning Frida, please could you tell us a little bit about yourself? 

FE: I was born and raised in Mexico City, I did my architecture degree at the Universidad Iberoamericana and I started working on projects on my own, right after I finished school. It is not unusual in Mexico. It is a big advantage and a big disadvantage, because it means that you really don’t get to learn an office’s structure, such as the financial structure, by working with somebody else. You learn the hard way and you also don’t have a lot of money, but it gives you a lot of creative freedom and motivation. 

W*: What was your first project? 

FE: My first project was when Alejandro Alarcón and I were associated and his mother asked us to do a tiny renovation and extension for her. Of course we convinced her to commission a whole new apartment. After seven years I came across the Public Domain program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in Boston and applied. At the time I was also working on a competition for La Tallera [art gallery]. I flipped the coin and thought, maybe I will get accepted in GSD or maybe I will win the competition. But I got both! And it was amazing, but very challenging, both in terms of geography and time. 

W*: When did the Serpentine invite you to do the pavilion, and what were your first thoughts? 

FE: I met Hans Ulrich [Obrist, artistic director at the Serpentine Gallery] in 2013 or 2014 when he was doing the 89plus Americas Marathon program at Museo Jumex. They needed a stage/pedestal/podium and I designed it for them. Many years after – late last year – I received a letter from the Serpentine Gallery. It was an invitation to propose something for the pavilion. I was excited and in shock! So many important architects have designed this pavilion so it was a challenge to try and come up with something that was new, but at the same time reflects the spirit of the office. 

W*: Did you follow the pavilion series before, have you visited any of the past ones? 

FE: Yes, but I only had the chance to go to the Bjarke Ingels pavilion, I have seen the rest in photos only. 

W*: What does it mean to you to design a pavilion? 

FE: It is a public space, but also a platform to show what you think about space and how you want to deal with space. We have been working with temporary structures for a while now. They become little labs to test ideas on. Because they are so compressed as a project, they allow us to test, experiment and see things that we normally wouldn’t see with larger projects. 

W*: How would you describe your design for the pavilion, in one sentence; what is this particular test about? 

FE: It is about time, temporality and personal experience. 

W*: What inspired the design? 

FE: When you are designing a pavilion, especially one like this that will be here for a few months and is then going to move somewhere else, you are designing for a very specific site, but also for anywhere. It’s about understanding this idea of time, temporality, space, locality and how we understand those things in a more abstract way. It is something that is very local but also placeless. The way for us to tie it to the site, and to free it from the site, was to work with the Meridian line. 

We were also thinking about the idea of interior and exterior and how you can be inside, but also out. We wanted to create this closed courtyard that is inside the park, which in turn is inside the city of London; a Russian doll of interiors. We were inspired by La Mezquita [the Mosque] in Cordoba. 

So, we tied the pavilion’s footprint to the geometry and the location of the gallery. But then we have a second rectangle that intersects that first one, and it is aligned to the Greenwich Meridian. This is our subtle nod to that abstract idea of time and space. The rotation between the two rectangles creates three spaces – two smaller courtyards and a central one. The walls are very porous. We used British roof tiles to make a lattice. It seems quite opaque from a distance but as you approach it becomes very transparent. 

W*: What would you like the visitors to take away from the experience of being in your pavilion? 

FE: It is about encounter – encounters with other people, but also with yourself. 

W*: What next? What other projects are you currently working on? 

FE: We are a very diverse office. We are doing public sculpture in the botanical gardens in Orleans; we are doing exhibition design, housing projects in Mexico – both public and private – a retail space in New York, and two hotels, also in Mexico. There are nine of us in the office – I have the best team.

INFORMATION

For more information visit the website of Frida Escobedo

Frida Escobedo has been added to the list of esteemed Serpentine Pavilion allum. Following in the blueprints of Francis Kéré last year, and BIG in 2016, the Mexican architect will be the first solo woman to take on the challenge since the late Zaha Hadid in 2000. 

Selected by Serpentine artistic director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO Yana Peel, with help from advisors David Adjaye and Richard Rogers, Escobedo is also the youngest architect to be chosen for the project in its 18-year history. Born in 1979 in Mexico City, Escobedo established a studio in her home town 12 years ago. She has become known for her championing of Mexican design inspirations and practices, something she intends to convey in her Serpentine Pavilion commission, which features a courtyard enclosed by dark latticed walls, intended as a play on the celosia – a common trope in Mexican architecture that allows breeze to flow through buildings.

In what the architect describes as ‘a meeting of material and historical inspirations’, the courtyard design will also be site-specific to London. Along with positioning the interior wall of the courtyard along the Greenwich Meridian line (a summation of the British timezone, established in 1851), Escobedo will also use a palate of British materials (namely cement and wood), chosen for their atmospheric, dark qualities. 

Widely acknowledged as one of the more challenging briefs in architecture thanks to its short six-month time frame, and the Pavilion’s multi-function as both performance area, object of art and public installation, Yana Peel believes Escobedo has hit the nail on the head. ‘It promises to be a place of both deep reflection and dynamic encounter’, she says, hoping it will bring ‘the urgency of art and architecture to the widest audiences.’

The commission follows a string of international successes for Escobedo. She impressed last year at the Chicago Architecture Bienniale, with her multi-levelled gathering place that overhauled a reading room of the old Chicago Convention Centre library, and for giving the former studio and home of Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros a new lease of life in 2012. Her eclectic oeuvre also includes interior architecture for Aesop, and a commission for the V&A Museum in London. This new, highly public commission – a meeting of timezones, functions and cultures – promises to share Escobedo’s work with a larger audience, offering her practice more of the widespread recognition it deserves. 

INFORMATION
From 15 June to 7 October 2018. For more information, visit the Serpentine Pavilion website and Frida Escobedo’s website

Designed by architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, the newly unveiled Serpentine Pavilion takes its public role at the heart of London very seriously. It is a community structure that is ecologically intelligent and aware of the impact that culture and architecture can play in shaping society.

Originally from Gando in Burkina Faso, Kéré returned there after training as an architect in Berlin, where he felt that his skills would be more useful. It was during this time while working on early, career defining buildings that he formed his practice, informed by the context of challenging weather conditions and a requirement for sustainable and hard-working materials. Yet it was also the culture of his community – the debates, the meetings and the stories – all social structures integral to village life that have informed his design for this year’s Serpentine Pavilion.

‘The concept is simple, I was inspired by the figure of the tree in the landscape,’ he says, distilling the notion of the pavilion down to one of the most basic, yet central forms of shelter, and its function as a meeting point.

Supported by a light steel framed trunk, the structure has timber brise soleil eaves extending over like the canopy of a tree, creating a dappled light effect, while above, layers of clear polycarbonate panels shelter the internal space. The complex formation has been engineered to a minimum by AECOM, making the exposed materials appear weightless. Light permeates further through the four free-standing walls of timber modules. Independent from the roof, these walls leave a smoothly horizontal sightline that frames the surrounding green tree tops.

Kéré compares the indigo blue of the timber modules to textiles, and the colour holds a cultural relevance to him because in Burkina Faso, indigo shows your ‘best side’ and ‘allows you to shine’. There is openness at every angle. Four entrances naturally open up between the indigo walls, allowing a flow of people into the pavilion. ‘We wanted you to be connected to nature. As you enter the pavilion you will see the trees, if you go inside this void, inside this courtyard, you will have the connection to the sky and in time, I hope it will rain soon and you will feel safe and protected by the structure,’ he says.

Just like his structures that are responsive and aware of climate in Burkina Faso, here in London Kéré pays the same respect to the British climate. When it rains, the water will flow from the polycarbonate roof, down into the central core where a waterfall will process water to be collected through drainage channels in the poured concrete. ‘Water is a precious good,’ he says. ‘I wanted to celebrate it here, not just symbolically but for real, we are able to collect almost 9000 litres of water that will be used for the park. It is real.’

Kéré’s strong community values run solidly through his architectural practice, as well as his design, to which strong female figures are central to. ‘Without the women in Gando I would never be able to do the work that I’m doing. If you came to my home place and saw how these women are making a concrete floor, that becomes more than a concrete floor. If you see the energy that the women bring, which stays with me like one person, you would be greatly surprised’, he says.

At the opening this week, Kéré paid tribute to Zaha Hadid, who inspired and initiated the Serpentine Pavilion programme in 2000 with the gallery’s former co-director Julia Peyton-Jones, as well as Serpentine Galleries CEO Yana Peel and project manager Julie Burnell, and other inspiring women around him, including his daughter. ‘It is an honour to have her here, to see her father in the middle of such a prestigious event, it makes me proud,’ he said. And in return, London certainly feels proud to have an architect such as Kéré, who values community, the environment, and all the people around it.

INFORMATION
The Serpentine Pavilion 2017 is on view until 8 October 2017. For more information, visit the Serpentine Gallery website

This year, the Serpentine Pavilion will be designed by African architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, principal at Kéré Architecture and currently based in Berlin. An established summertime destination for locals and visitors alike, the Serpentine Pavilion is Kéré’s first London project. Known for designing socially engaged architecture, the Burkina Faso-born architect describes his design for the pavilion as a ‘micro-cosmos’ and a ‘community structure’ that combines cultural references to his homeland with experimental construction techniques.

Supported by a steel structure, a liberal wooden canopy provides a wide space for activities within, protecting its temporary inhabitants from the rain, yet channelling the rays of the sun through an oculus in the roof and into a central courtyard. The oculus is also balanced to funnel water from the roof, cascading down into a waterfall, before it joins a drainage system collecting water to irrigate Kensington Gardens.

Responsive to the unpredictable nature of the British summertime, the structure provides shelter for all types of weather. For the walls, prefabricated wooden blocks will be assembled into triangular modules with apertures between the blocks allowing light to filter through. Patterns of shadows will be cast into the space during the day while at night the pavilion will be illuminated from the inside.

‘This combination of features promotes a sense of freedom and community; like the shade of the tree branches, the pavilion becomes a place where people can gather and share their daily experiences,’ says Kéré. In his hometown of Gando, the tree is a central meeting point, connecting people to nature and each other, which was a key inspiration for him.

Kéré is seventeenth in line to accept the commission, which started in 2000, following the likes of Zaha Hadid who designed the inaugural pavilion; Frank Gehry in 2008; Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, 2012; and Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), last year. In contrast to BIG’s structure – a futuristic wave of pixelated blocks, which was one of the most visited to date – Kéré’s pavilion has been designed from the inside, out, prioritising activities and conjuring a sense of community through its circular plan.

‘Fundamental to my architecture is a sense of openness,’ he says. ‘My experience of growing up in a remote desert village has instilled a strong awareness of the social, sustainable, and cultural implications of design. I believe that architecture has the power to, surprise, unite, and inspire all while mediating important aspects such as community, ecology and economy,’ says Kéré.

INFORMATION
The Serpentine Pavilion will be on view from 23 June – 8 October. For more information, visit the Serpentine Gallery website

ADDRESS

Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Previously unseen drawings and notebooks belonging to the late Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) are on display at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London, giving an intimate insight into the formative years of the visionary architect and celebrating her enduring spirit for experimentation.

While studying architecture Hadid used calligraphic drawings to communicate her ideas. Inspired by the artistic styles of Malevich, Tatlin and Rodchenko she combined abstract geometric forms to create drawings which quickly became designs for self-contained dimensional buildings and worlds.

Read gallerist David Gill's tribute to Zaha Hadid here

The exhibition shows works from the 1970s to the early 1900s that she made before her first building, the Vitra Fire Station in Germany, opened in 1993, demonstrating the formative influences that can now be seen translated into architecture across the world.

Her designs for the Guggenheim’s 1992 exhibition ‘The Russian and Soviet Avant-Garde’ already showed a masterful grip on space and shape, seen in the dynamic slithers of crimson and scatterings of sculpted blocks spiralling across the canvas. Striking paintings for a project entitled ‘Visions for Madrid’ represent her attempt to arrest the city’s collapse into formlessness and organise the ’anarchic spread of development’.

The Serpentine Sackler Gallery, renovated and extended by Hadid’s practice in 2013, is a fitting location for this homage, which was curated in collaboration with Hadid herself prior to her untimely passing.

INFORMATION

‘Zaha Hadid’ is on view until 12 February 2017. For more information, visit the Serpentine Gallery website

ADDRESS

Kensington Gardens
W Carriage Dr
London W2 2AR

VIEW GOOGLE MAPS

Since early June, not one, but five temporary pavilions, have been gracing London’s Kensington Gardens, courtesy of the Serpentine Galleries. The annual Serpentine pavilion – the summer architectural celebration created this year by the expert hand of BIG's Bjarke Ingels – was, for the very first time, accompanied by four summer houses. The four smaller structures dot the park’s green lawns, offering visitors even further space for architectural fun and rest. And now they can now be yours. 

London based agents The Modern House, headed by Matt Gibberd and Albert Hill and specialising in design-led properties in the UK and abroad, have just announced their partnership with the Serpentine Galleries to bring the summer houses to market. Designed by four international practices that have never built in London before, they take a varied approach. 

You can take your pick. German practice Barkow Leibinger worked with curved plywood for theirs, inspired by a rotating William Kent-designed pavilion; London-based Asif Khan composed a polished metal structure that creates an ‘intimate experience’ for the visitor; Yona Friedman’s ethereal metal structure builds upon his project La Ville Spatiale, which begun in the late 1950s; while Kunlé Adeyemi created his own, inverse abstract version of the historic Queen Caroline’s Temple, working with the building’s neo-classical plan, proportions and form.

Offering the chance to indulge your inner collector, and ranging from £95,000 to £125,000 (plus VAT), the four summer houses will be up for grabs once the Serpentine Galleries' installation is deconstructed in early October.

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Modern House website or the Serpentine Galleries website

Photography: Iwan Baan

Initiated by outgoing gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones, the Serpentine Gallery's programme of pavilion building began at the turn of the century with a tensile structure by the late Zaha Hadid. Sixteen years later, and the pavilion is a highlight of the summer calendar, both in terms of its creative direction and as a venue for events.

This year sees Peyton-Jones' last summer at the Serpentine, and together with artistic director, curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist, she has chosen to go out with a splash, commissioning not just a pavilion on the traditional front lawn location, but also four 'summer houses'. These – sponsored by developers Northacre – are set a short distance away from the gallery, adjoining Queen Caroline's Temple, a classical folly constructed in 1734 and attributed to the progenitor of English Palladianism, William Kent. Bjarke Ingels' BIG takes the credit for the main structure, while the four 25 sq m summer houses are by Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Yona Friedman and Asif Khan.

First, the main event. Ingels is a natural choice for this most ephemeral but high profile of buildings. In the past, big players have come rather unstuck when faced with the transient and demountable nature of the pavilion. Oscar Niemeyer's sturdy concrete shell, Jean Nouvel's red plastic shed, or Frank Gehry's hefty construction of timber and steel all seemed to favour statement over function. They were countered by pavilions so diaphanous they barely counted as buildings at all, from Fujimoto's stack to SelgasCano's riot of stretched ribbons and OMA's bulbous inflatable roof.

Ingels has an innate understanding of architecture's dramatic potential, and the way in which subtle, repetitive modulations can create a sense of scale and awe. The 2016 pavilion is simplicity itself, built from extruded square tubes of glass fibre, supplied by Fiberline Composites, reinforced and bolted together using hundreds of T-shaped aluminium brackets. This wall of blocks is canted and sloped, rippled and twisted, expanding within to create a cave-like interior, while the exterior 'walls' offer up a slice of man-made landscape in the verdant surroundings.

It is undeniably beautiful, even though the joints and materials are utterly prosaic up close. The sinuous wave of jagged blocks plays games with scale, creating a miniature realisation of the megastructural ziggurats the Danish studio is so adeptly building around the world. As before, the interior space – lined with wood and decked out with simple wooden cube seating – will serve as a café by day and a multi-functional event space by night, with talks, poetry, music, theatre and more. 'There will be no end to experimentation,' Obrist says, paraphrasing Hadid's words to him back in 2000, his acknowledgement of the debt the Serpentine owes her for driving the programme forwards.

Ingels spoke of the project as being a welcome break from the constraints of site and place. 'It's a pure manifestation of the values of the architect,' he says, expounding on the bifurcated functions of the structure. 'It's a wall that becomes a hall, it's a gate but it's open and transparent, or opaque and translucent.' He also cited Jørn Utzon's belief in architecture's ability to create difference from repetition. Above all, Ingels says that the pavilion offers 'unscripted possibilities' to both architect and end users, a rare joy in a world that's becoming more and more unaccustomed to going off-script.

In contrast to the blank slate of the pavilion proper, the four summer house commissions were tasked with taking inspiration from the existing 18th-century folly. This is a little hidden gem, with a cool, stone-flagged and white-washed interior, vermiculated stonework and pared-back detail. The architectural responses are all very different, scattered across the lawns outside in stark opposition to each other.

Frank Barkow was explicit about the prototypical nature of Barkow Leibinger's chunky curved wood extravaganza – 'it has a resonance and will live beyond its four months here', he says. It's countered by Friedman's array of spindly steel cubes, an outdoor exhibition space that looked at the mercy of the elements, even on a calm sunny day. Asif Khan's cool, calm spiky 'temple' is designed to align to the position of the sun on Queen Caroline's birthday, like Kent's original; whereas Kunlé Adeyemi inverted and rotated the interior of the 1734 structure to form a neo-classical object of sandstone and foam, a picturesque pre-fabricated ruin.

The Ingels structure will be rebuilt in both Asia and the US after its sojourn in Kensington Gardens, but the four summer houses will vanish and the landscape return to bucolic splendour. Will this venture set a precedent for the post Peyton-Jones era, ushering in a new era of smaller-scale innovation every summer? Or will the pavilion programme wither without her drive and connections? If it's the latter, the BIG structure is a fitting finale to 16 years of architectural exploration. Today we have a very different relationship with architecture than we did at the turn of the century, and the conjunction of big names and bold forms perhaps no longer dazzles like it once did. Style needs substance, regardless of how temporary a structure is. Ingels delivers both with aplomb.

INFORMATION

The Serpentine pavilion and summer houses will be open until 9 October. For more information, visit the Serpentine Galleries’ website

ADDRESS

Serpentine Galleries
Kensington Gardens
London, W2 3XA

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American textile house Maharam has released its second round of artist-designed wallpapers in collaboration with Serpentine Galleries during Frieze New York. This year, the collaboration gathered the multifaceted international talents of Beatriz González, Alex Katz, Jean Nouvel and Raqs Media Collective.

The four new designs join last year’s inaugural release of prints by Ai Weiwei, John Baldessari, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Toyo Ito, SANAA, Rosemarie Trockel and Lawrence Weiner. Still under the curation of Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, the new works follow the same vibrant repetitive patterned theme, all imbued with their own subject matter and mastered using hi-tech digital printing, and high-resolution imagery on the paper.

Each of the wallpapers tells its own artistic story, with a little humour arriving in American artist Alex Katz’s animated dog, Sunny. Realised here in a monochrome palette, he leaves just the blood red tongue of his family dog peeking out as the abstract focal point.

Alternatively, French architect Jean Nouvel paid tribute to the beauty of the English summer landscape with his scorching red and green print. Titled Summer Hours in Kensington, it includes photographs of idyllic English paraphernalia in two opposite hues. When discussing the colour choice, he poetically muses: ‘Red is summer heat. Red complements green. Red is bright, alive, piercing. Red is provocative, forbidden, loud. Red is as English as a red rose, as red as London's iconic objects, a double-decker bus or a telephone box, the transitory places we gravitate towards.’

More solemn works were offered up by Indian artists Raqs Media Collective and Colombian pop artist Beatriz González, who draws on cultural references with her print Wiwa Stories. The pale blue painting captures the plight of 11 people killed by lightning during a Colombian tribal ceremony. Meanwhile, Raqs Media Collective adopt a similar gloomy palette with a line-up of ominously painted bottles called Antidote.

Proudly printed with UV-resistant inks on a washable, latex-reinforced substrate, the wallpapers will be available by the roll at the Serpentine Galleries shop in London or by the linear yard through Maharam.

Following the first round of designs, the new works adopt the same vibrant repetitive patterned themes, all imbued with their own subject matter and mastered using hi-tech digital printing, and high-resolution imagery on the paper. Pictured: Sunny, by Alex Katz

INFORMATION

Wallpapers are available by the roll at the Serpentine Galleries shop in London, or by the linear yard through Maharam. For more information, visit the Maharam website

Thousands of exhibitions took place in Milan during Salone del Mobile as they do every year, presenting new launches and exciting concepts; but few are as analytical or highbrow as Hella Jongerius and Louise Schouwenberg’s window displays for La Rinascente, commissioned by the Serpentine Galleries. 

Reflecting on the state of affairs in design and prompting a consideration of the meanings that hide behind a display, 'A Search Behind Appearances' proposes we move beyond commercial success, beyond style differences and beyond personal taste. 

‘For decades design has been reduced to the production of mere style differences, a deceitful play of illusions, and an accompanying marketing verbiage,’ states Jongerius. 'With this [showcase] I don't want to say "this is good design, this is bad design", I wanted to address something in the making. It was a search that took half a year and a lot of debate. We came up with the idea of the shadow play, showing what is behind an object, the meaning behind an object and how to make it larger than it's physical presence.' 

The collaboration between Jongerius and Schouwenberg picks up almost exactly where the pair left off last year with their equally cognitive project 'Beyond the New – A Search for Ideals in Design'. 'Can we give some answers to the questions [we posed last year]? How can we come to solutions or give them a physical approach?' says Jongerius of their starting point for this year's project. 

Resulting in a range of visual metaphors, 'A Search Behind Appearances' took over the famous department store's eight Piazza Duomo-facing windows during the foremost furniture fair. The first and last windows were dedicated to explaining the project while the six central displays housed fabrics with complex woven patterns onto which shadows – generated by small letters and scale models of designer items – dance around, gradually transforming into letters, words and back to their original forms. 

'It's not that I have solutions or answers,' she humbly adds, 'It's about starting up a discourse: what can we design in a world of plenty? And how can we do it responsibly?' Apt questions considering the current climate.

INFORMATION

Photography courtesy of La Rinascente/Serpentine Gallery

The artist collective is an idea that’s been reinvented many times, and now perhaps the artists Adele Röder and Kerstin Brätsch have done so again. Their brainchild is ‘DAS INSTITUT’, a collective that, unlike more utopian versions, does not really promote the group above the individual or relish anonymity. Rather, it blurs together works by different artists in the context of an exhibition.

DAS INSTITUT’s latest self-titled show, at the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, is based around the layering of Röder and Brätsch’s distinctive practices, especially Brätsch’s Mylar paintings and stained-glass works, and Röder’s neon sculptures. They’ve also incorporated various other artists, including a sound piece by Sergei Tcherepnin and a film by respected artist and historian Alexander Kluge.

What binds it all together, essentially, is aesthetics. The exhibition is a sensory overload, winding its way around the gallery with garish lights and unnerving shapes appearing in a range of media. In partitioned-off corners you encounter Brätsch’s psychedelic marbled paintings, and some unusual slide shows. Especially grotesque is the Am Sonntag series, featuring doctored images of Röder and Brätsch themselves with thin necks and witch-like noses.

The works are big and brash, and materials are fetishised throughout, with plenty of slick surfaces and wooden crates being used as improvised pedestals. Here DAS INSTITUT seem to recall an older sort of collective, one based on a sharing of different crafts. Generally, though, this project could only be called collective in a superficial sense. With its sinister atmosphere, it seems more like a parody of harmonious collaboration.

Information

'DAS INSTITUT' is on view until 15 May. For more information, visit the Serpentine Sackler Gallery's website

Address

Serpentine Sackler Gallery
West Carriage Drive
London, W2 2AR

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Earlier this month, news of the expanded Serpentine Pavilion sent ripples of excitement through the capital, and now we've been granted a first look at the main pavilion and accompanying four Summer Houses taking shape this summer. 

The main event, Bjarke Ingels Group's (BIG) pavilion, 'embodies multiple aspects that are often perceived as opposites: a structure that is free-form yet rigorous, modular yet sculptural, both transparent and opaque, both solid box and blob', explains the practice. An 'unzipped wall' transforms from a straight line into a three-dimensional space, creating a dramatic structure with multiple uses.

The Summer Houses, although smaller in scale, are by no means simpler constructions. Kunlé Adeyemi’s design pays tribute to the historic Queen Caroline's Temple – a summer house built close to the then recently created Serpentine in 1734, attributed to William Kent– with a clever inverse replica. Prefabricated sandstone building blocks will create abstracted forms to create a room, a doorway and a window, exposing the structure’s neo-classical plan, proportions and architectural form in a playful manner. 

Also paying tribute to the Temple, but concentrating more on the dialogue between it and its surrounding scenery, Asif Khan's Summer House will revive a picturesque moment from 300 years ago though polished metal surfaces and undulating timber staves. 'Through sun path analysis I realised that Kent aligned the temple toward the direction of the rising sun on 1st March 1683, Queen Caroline’s birthday,' explains Khan; an effect that would have been amplified by the reflection off the lake at the time, although now obscured by John Rennie’s 1826 bridge.

Taking inspiration from another lost moment in time, Barkow Leibinger's design is modelled on a now extinct, hill-top pavilion also created by William Kent. 'We have designed a Summer House in-the-round, conceived as a series of undulating structural bands,' explains the Berlin-based practice. 'The logic of generating a structure from loops is a self-generating one and comes from the idea of coiling material in your hands then stacking the coils upon each other.'

The fourth and final Summer House takes a more conceptual approach, building upon Yona Friedman's 1950's project 'La Ville Spatiale'. 'The manifesto for this project was based on two pillars or principles,' explains the Hungarian-born French architect. 'Firstly, a mobile architecture that could create an elevated city space and enable the growth of cities while restraining the use of land; secondly, the use of modular structures to allow people to live in housing of their own design.' Using a 'space-chain' conceived for that project, her Serpentine Summer House will be a modular structure of rings. 

Engineering and all technical services will be jointly provided by AKT11 and AECOM, with the pavilions due to be unveiled on 10 June. 

ADDRESS

Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London, W2 3XA

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The annual Serpentine Pavilion announcement is one of the most highly anticipated architecture events of the year and news has reached us that the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) is set to design the renowned London gallery's next instalment. But the ambitious art space has upped the ante this year, with additional new plans in the pipeline.

This summer, the architecture programme will also include a quartet of 25 sq m Summer Houses, designed by four different architects, called in by the gallery to create something inspired by the nearby Queen Caroline's Temple – a classical style summer house originally built in 1734. These will be designed by Kunlé Adeyemi - NLÉ (Amsterdam/Lagos); Barkow Leibinger (Berlin/New York); Yona Friedman (Paris); and Asif Khan (London).

The expanded scheme still needs to go through planning with application set to reach Westminster Council later this month; and should this be granted, in a few months Londoners and visitors alike will be able to get a multiplied firsthand experience of contemporary architecture, all from within the historic parkland of Kensington Gardens.

The BIG-designed pavilion will sit at the heart of the commission, allowing for a space where visitors can sit and relax, as well as providing 'a forum for learning, debate and entertainment at night,' explains the gallery. A café on site will be run in partnership with Harrods.

Following up on the pavilion's continued success since the program's inception in 2000 - and last year's brightly coloured design by Spanish architecture firm Selgascano - this year's architectural bonanza is set to open its doors on 10 June, running through to October 2016.

INFORMATION

For more information on BIG, visit the website. The programme runs from 10 June until 9 October 2016

ADDRESS

Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA 

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Opened today at the Serpentine Gallery, British artist Michael Craig-Martin's first solo show in a London public institution since 1989.

Following his blockbuster of a summer show at Chatsworth House last year and a showcase of new paintings in Shanghai at the start of this year, Irish artist Michael Craig-Martin is back in the city he calls home with a new solo show at London's Serpentine Gallery. Unbelievably, this is Craig-Martin's first solo show in a London public institution since 1989.

Widely credited as inspiring a new generation of artists including Damien Hirst, during his 15-year tenure as a tutor at Goldsmiths, Craig-Martin has a long record of challenging conventional ways of seeing and his new show, 'Transience,' is no different. Centring on his paintings of once familiar yet obsolete technology - from the battery to the cassette tape to the laptop - each of the successive electronic inventions on show are depicted in the artist's self-proclaimed 'style-less style' - simple line drawings mechanically filled-in with blocks of pure even colour. 

These works, which were created over four decades between 1981 - 2015, act as a documentation of evolving technology, tracking the rapid change from analogue to digital and forcing us to reflect upon how these electronic objects have shaped the way we live.

'Craig-Martin's acute observations present an extraordinary picture of recent developments in the production, processes, functions and form of the objects that populate our world,' says the Serpentine's Director Julia Peyton-Jones. 'His work reveals a search for the ultimate expression of contemporaneity in a way that we all experience – through the items we use every day.'

As well as the paintings, 'Transience' features new wallpaper by Craig-Martin created especially for the exhibition.

The exhibition gathers Craig-Martin's paintings of obsolete technology - from the battery to the cassette tape to the laptop - each of the successive electronic inventions on show are depicted in the artist's self-proclaimed 'style-less style'.

Created over four decades between 1981 - 2015, the works on show at 'Transience' feature bold outlines mechanically filled-in with blocks of pure even colour.

These works act as a documentation of evolving technology, tracking the rapid change from analogue to digital and forcing us to reflect upon how these electronic objects have shaped the way we live. 

Widely credited as inspiring a new generation of artists during his 15-year tenure as a tutor at Goldsmiths, Craig-Martin has a long record of challenging conventional ways of seeing. 

'His work reveals a search for the ultimate expression of contemporaneity in a way that we all experience – through the items we use every day,' says the Serpentine's Director Julia Peyton-Jones. 

Born in Dublin, Michael Craig-Martin moved to the USA with his family in 1945 and studied painting at Yale University, CT. 

'I discovered exactly the same thing about colour that I discovered about objects, which is that there aren't very many,' says Craig-Martin in conversation with Hans Ulrich-Obrist, Co-Director at Serpentine Galleries. 'You can name all the colours and then everything else is a variation of about ten or twelve colours,'

'Craig-Martin's acute observations present an extraordinary picture of recent developments in the production, processes, functions and form of the objects that populate our world,' says the Serpentine's Director Julia Peyton-Jones.

The exhibition follows Craig-Martin's blockbuster summer show at Chatsworth House last year and a showcase of new paintings in Shanghai at the start of this year.

INFORMATION

’Michael Craig-Martin - Transience’ runs till 14 February 2016 at Serpentine Gallery. For more information visit the Serpentine website

ADDRESS

Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA

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There's always something playful about the annual Serpentine Pavilion designs. These temporary structures, making their appearance for a few months every summer on the grounds of London's Kensington Gardens, have an inherent sense of discovery and mischievousness about them. As structures, they are conceived to serve a functional role (a park's meeting and resting space), but they are also follies designed to inspire and excite, freed from some building constraints by their transient nature. This year's offering by Spanish architecture practice SelgasCano – headed by José Selgas and Lucía Cano – is no exception. 

Awash with colour, it's probably even bolder and brighter than Jean Nouvel's brilliant red 2010 edition; the low pavilion's amorphous shape is like nothing the park has seen before. Eye-catching and photogenic, it brings to mind a sprawling, colourful caterpillar, or the retro-sci-fi set of an old episode of Doctor Who. 

Up close, the structure feels transparent and light – almost too light at times, its surface gently moving in the opening day's light wind. Its thin skin, made out of panels of translucent, multi-coloured fluorine-based polymer (ETFE) 'woven through and wrapped like webbing', covers several steel-framed tunnels that invite you to explore its core. The architects say their inspiration came not only from the site and context, but also from the London Underground tunnel system; it therefore features a number of entrances (and exits) and 'secret' corridors between layers, for free, yet somehow structured circulation. A cafe sits at its heart, offering ice creams and refreshments courtesy of Fortnum & Mason.   

Colour and transparency are frequent elements in the architects' work. Their own office, tucked away in the woods outside Madrid, is partly clad in clear glass, uniting the workspace and nature, while their Merida Factory in Spain and the offices of collaborative workspace Second Home in London bear the practice's signature colours and bold shapes. For the Serpentine, visitor experience defined SelgasCano's approach. 'We sought a way to allow the public to experience architecture through simple elements,' they say. 'Structure, light, transparency, shadows, lightness, form, sensitivity, change surprise, colour and materials.' 

In many ways, the unveiling is a landmark one. It certainly marks the start of the British high summer season, but with this year's completed structure, the gallery is also celebrating the hugely popular scheme's 15th year. (It is, the gallery explains, one of the top-ten most visited architectural and design exhibitions in the world). It also signifies the closing of this year's month-long London Festival of Architecture; the pavilion's opening weekend is the festival's very last. 

Finally, it completes a series of playful shows, currently ongoing at various London venues – the Hayward's Carsten Höller slides, RIBA's Brutalist Playground installation... even this year's RA Summer Exhibition looks into ideas of landscape and outdoors explorations in its architecture room, curated by Ian Ritchie. 

This is just the beginning for the pavilion's four month lifespan. A connected series of talks and events are planned for the duration, while the Serpentine has also launched a brand new initiative around it – Build Your Own Pavilion: Young Architects Competition – a digital platform for young people to submit their own pavilion designs. Winners will be selected at the end of the summer.

ADDRESS

Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens, London

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London's Serpentine Galleries and American textile house, Maharam's collaboration: A collection of 13 patterned wallpapers by seven artists and architects. Frames, from left, Circa 1907 American Arts & Crafts painting frame, by Carrig-Rohane Boston Makers; 18th-century French Louis XVI frame; custom-made replica of a 1920s-30s American Modernist frame; 19th-century french shadowbox frame, all from Gill & Lagodich Gallery, New York  Producer: Michael Reynolds

Putting a John Baldessari or a Rosemarie Trockel on your wall just got a whole lot easier, thanks to a collaboration between London's Serpentine Galleries and the American textile house, Maharam. The Serpentine's latest stab at making art accessible to all is an inspiring collection of wallpapers. Made up of 13 patterns, mainly produced specifically for the project, by seven artists and architects, the inaugural collection brings the long tradition of artists creating wallpapers bang up to date.

Under the fine curatorial eye of Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist, co-directors of the Serpentine Galleries, the Maharam Serpentine Galleries wallpaper collection includes previously unseen work from artists such as John Baldessari, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Rosemarie Trockel, Lawrence Weiner and Ai Weiwei, as well as architects Toyo Ito and SANAA, as featured in our June 2015 issue (W*195).

'Wallpaper is something many artists and architects have been interested in,' explains Obrist, who visited artists such as Beatriz González in Bogota and Etel Adnan in Beirut, during his early research of the idea.

'We found it interesting that this partnership with Maharam could be an exhibition of wallpapers that might be seen in houses all over the world and would actually lead to a dissemination.' 'It is possible for all of us to commission architects, designers and indeed artists, to do something specifically for us,' Peyton-Jones says. 'However, having wallpaper that you can buy by the roll, to cover a wall, a room, or a [whole] house or apartment, means that you can be your own curator in your own home.'

The collection's vibrant patterns range from the abstract to the photorealistic, and are all realised using the fine-art grade, digital printing techniques that Maharam has finessed since launching its Maharam Digital Projects arm in 2009. Each artist's design is printed with UV-resistant inks onto a latex- reinforced substrate. The end results possess all the durability of traditional wallpaper.

Apart from John Baldessari's four designs, which originally appeared in a 1998 exhibition in Zurich, each pattern is freshly minted. From Marc Camille Chaimowicz's illustrative 'Pavilion' design, which depicts the Serpentine building in its Kensington surroundings, to Ai Weiwei's self-referential 'Golden Age' and Rosemarie Trockel's restrained shapes, the works are not just familiar favourites on a roll.

'The patterns were created in dialogue with the artists, and on the basis of past work that had been underexposed,' comments Michael Maharam, the wallpaper company's CEO, who helped set the course of the Serpentine Galleries' venture. While the choice to include designs from SANAA and Toyo Ito might seem an unusual turn, the architects' involvement highlights the increasing cross-pollination between art, design and architecture, which the Serpentine Galleries has long pioneered.

Everyone involved in the collection was given creative carte blanche. Maharam provided only technical guidance to ensure a distinguishable pattern was created. Dung Ngo, the brand's editorial director, explains, 'Because artists' works are generally unique as a composition, they can struggle with the idea of a repeatable pattern. The best way [of working] has often been for us to create a repeat with the art they give us, so they can see what it looks like on a wall. Once they see it, it is much easier to make adjustments.'

Briefly showcased at a Libby Sellers - curated show at La Rinascente, during April's Salone del Mobile in Milan, the collection will debut officially at Frieze New York this month.'We see it as an evolving exhibition,' says Obrist, 'like the Serpentine Pavilions, which have been going for 15 years. We hope there will be 200 years of wallpaper.'

As featured in the June 2015 (W*195) issue of Wallpaper*