This year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is designed by multi award-winning Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. He is the youngest, at 41, to accept the invitation to design one of the most famous temporary structures worldwide – the Sepentine’s annual Pavilion commission is one of the most important events on the cultural calendar.
Architect stated that he tried to create something – of course really artificial – but nicely melding together with the surrounding, in order to create a nice mixture of nature and architecture. The grid is artificial and sharp, transparent, but the atmosphere created is blurring and ambiguous, cloud-like. Therefore beautiful duality is created – artificial order and natural order.
The white, cloud-like, blurry structure of the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens is made in white lattice of steel poles. As the grid varies in density, it sometimes frames while sometimes obscures the surrounding park, depending on the visitors moving around it. Transparent polycarbonate enables the structure to act like a shelter from the rain, while creating a reflecting layer for the sunlight.
Technical drawings and technical designed services for 2013 Pavilion is provided by AECOM – David Glover, AECOM’s global chief executive has worked on the design of many previous structures for the Serpentine Gallery.
Fujimoto is the third Japanese architect to design the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, following Pritzker Prize winners Toyo Ito in 2002 and Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA in 2009.
The Pavilion will open to the public this Saturday, June 8th, and will remain in place until 20 October.
