What We're Seeing: Amira Gad on the Serpentine Pavilion 2016

Serpentine Architecture Programme
Serpentine Architecture Programme
Serpentine Architecture Programme

Today sees the public opening of the Serpentine Galleries’ 16th annual Summer Pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels, of the Copenhagen and New York-based Bjarke Ingels Group. This year, the Pavilion is accompanied by four Summer Houses, commissioned as responses to the nearby Queen Caroline’s Temple, a classical-style summer house built in 1734.

Of this year’s Pavilion, Ingels says, ‘we have attempted to design a structure that 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’. The structure – resembling an unzipped wall – is created from overlapping fibreglass boxes, with the light filtering in to create a cavernous, playful space.

Curator Amira Gad will lead a tour of the Serpentine Pavilion on Saturday 11th June at 3pm to introduce the structure and the rest of the 2016 Serpentine Architecture Programme.

 

 

Related stories