For the past 10 years the park at the London Serpentine Gallery has been transformed into a public gallery: well known architects where allowed to build pavilions there ? and most people asked themselves: is it architecture or sculpture? This year Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa from the Japanese architect office SANAA.
They created a delicate piece, which rests on filigree chrome steel pylons between the trees of the park. The polished alloy roof reflects the sunlight and makes it look like a lake in the park ? if you overlook it from the street it looks like a cloud.
Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa?s design embraces the parkland around the Serpentine Gallery as never before with an extraordinarily innovative design, which reveals the subtle play on light and perception so characteristic of their work. This Pavilion will be a wonderful addition to London?s landscape this summer. It is our dream come true.
The art pieces just last one summer. Then the pavilion is taken down and sold to the highest bidder in order to create a new pavilion the next year. There are no subsidies for this project it is solely paid by sponsors and the sell of the pavilion.
More than a quarter of a million visitors visit the pavilion each year so it?s second to the famed ?Proms? happening. Julia Peyton-Jones showed some expertise by allowing leading architects to build a pavilion. The list of participants so far is impressive: Zaha, Hadid (2000), Daniel Libeskind (2001), Oscar Niemeyer (2003), Rem Koolhaas (2006), Olafur Eliasson (2007) or Frank Gehry (2008). Now we are looking forward to 2010.
Until 18th of October 2009
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, London W2 3XA (UK)
Further information: http://www.serpentinegallery.org
