Serpentine Galleries has revealed the latest design for its annual summer pavilion.
The site, located in London’s Kensington Gardens, will house a colourful concept by young Madrid-based architects SelgasCano. Encapsulating lightness and transparency, the psychedelic polygonal structure will consist of panels of a translucent, multi-coloured fabric woven through and wrapped in webbing.
Visitors will be able to enter and exit the pavilion at a number of different points, passing through a ‘secret corridor’ between the outer and inner layer of the structure and into the Pavilion’s stained glass-effect interior.
Serpentine Galleries director Julia Peyton-Jones and co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist said: “SelgasCano’s structure will be an extraordinary chrysalis-like structure, as organic as the surrounding gardens. We can’t wait to go inside to experience the light diffused through the coloured panels like stained glass windows. It will be a place for people to meet, to have coffee and to experience the live events we put on throughout the summer.”
Since its inception in 2000, the pavilion commission has showcased some of the world’s most high-profile architects, including Zaha Hadid, Oscar Niemeyer, Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel.
With this in mind, SelgasCano have sought to reflect the rich heritage the site offers: “We are very much aware of the Pavilion’s anniversary in our design for the 15th annual commission. The structure therefore had to be – without resembling previous pavilions – a tribute to them all and a homage to all the stories told within those designs.”
Opening to the public on 25 June, throughout the summer the pavillion will showcase art, poetry, music, film, literature and theory. In addition, it will present three new commissions by artists Jesse Darling, Fleur Melbourn and Marianna Simnett.
