Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion


Fig. 1.1 A superimposition of the previous pavilions.
As announced back in February, Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and their Chinese collaborator Ai Weiwei will be  designing this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion at Hyde Park in London, a special edition that will be part of the  London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad. This will be the trio’s first collaborative built structure in the UK. If you do not know who weiwei is – you definitely know the “bird’s nest” which was designed for the last Olympics… They are the same guys…


For those who don’t know what the whole brouhaha is about… Have a look at the info-graphic which covers all previous pavilions done by world famous architects.
Back when, it was announced, they had said that their design will explore the  hidden history of the previous installations, with eleven columns under the lawn of the Serpentine, representing the past pavilions and a twelfth column supporting a floating platform roof 1.4 metres above ground, which looks like a reflecting water-like surface in the renderings. The plan of the pavilion is based on a mix of the 11 previous pavilions’ layouts, pavilions that are represented as excavated foundations from which a new cork cladded landscape appears, as an archeological operation.

This year’s Pavilion will take visitors beneath the Serpentine’s lawn to explore the hidden history of its previous Pavilions. Eleven columns characterising each past Pavilion and a twelfth column representing the current structure will support a floating platform roof 1.4 metres above ground. The Pavilion’s interior will be clad in cork, a sustainable building material chosen for its unique qualities and to echo the excavated earth (i guess the “echo” would not be heard if they use cork, and its a clever use at a metaphor. Taking an archaeological approach, the architects have created a design that will inspire visitors to look beneath the surface of the park as well as back in time across the ghosts of the earlier structures. (maybe they wanted to say – we couldn’t really do better, so might as well mish-mash old designs put one extra column – and say – hell we DID do something!!!)

Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Serpentine Gallery, said: “It is a great honour to be working with Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, the design team behind Beijing’s superb Bird’s Nest Stadium. In this exciting year for London we are proud to be creating a connection between the Beijing 2008 and the London 2012 Games. We are enormously grateful for the help of everyone involved, especially Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal, whose incredible support has made this project possible.”


The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion will operate as a public space and as a venue for Park Nights, the Gallery’s high-profile programme of public talks and events. Connecting to the archaeological focus of the Pavilion design, Park Nights will culminate in October with the Serpentine Gallery Memory Marathon, the latest edition of the annual Serpentine Marathon series conceived by Hans Ulrich Obrist, now in its seventh year. The Marathon series began in 2006 with the 24-hour Serpentine Gallery Interview Marathon; followed by the Experiment Marathon in 2007; the Manifesto Marathon in 2008; the Poetry Marathon in 2009, the Map Marathon in 2010 and the Garden Marathon in 2011.


The 2012 Pavilion has been purchased by Usha and Lakshmi N. Mittal and will enter their private collection after it closes to the public in October 2012.


The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012 designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei will take place from 1 June to 14 October 2012. Those lucky to be in the neighborhood – do visit – the rest – rely on low res internet downloaded images…