Serpentine Gallery Pavilion: The Latest Architecture and News

The summer months have come and gone, which means one thing: the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is winding to an end (on October 14th, to be exact)!

With the recent release of the design for the 2012 Serpentine Pavilion by Herzog & de Meuron and collaborator Ai Weiwei, we’re bringing you the 2012 updated infographic, a cheat sheet for the 12 years of the Serpentine Pavilion. Read more about the new design here

As we announced back in February, Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron and their Chinese collaborator Ai Weiwei will design 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.

Back then, it was announced that their design will explore the hidden history of the previous installations (see all the previous pavilions in our infographic), 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.

The 2011 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Pritzker laureate Peter Zumthor was unveiled today. A design that ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again – maybe not’, the materials are significant in aiding the design which emphasizes the role the senses and emotions play in our experience of architecture.

Zumthor added that ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The planted garden enclosed by this dark structure was conceived by the influential Dutch designer Piet Oudolf.

The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’

More info after the break:

Pritzker Prize winning architect Peter Zumthor’s design for the 11th Serpentine Gallery Pavilion was revealed today. A design that ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again – maybe not’, the materials are significant in aiding the design which emphasizes the role the senses and emotions play in our experience of architecture. The Pavilion will be Zumthor’s first completed building in the UK

Zumthor shared that ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’

Stay tuned to ArchDaily for more images and news on Zumthor’s design for the Pavilion. Our previous coverage of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion can be found here, including Jean Nouvel’s Serpentine Gallery of 2010, and SANAA’s 2009 Serpentine Gallery.

French architect Jean Nouvel has been selected to design this years Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.

Since 2010, the Serpentine Gallery has commissioned world’s most renowned architects to design a temporary structure to host summer events. The list includes Zaha Hadid, Frank Ghery, Rem Koolhaas, Toyo Ito, Daniel Libeskind, Oscar Niemeyer, Alvaro Siza + Souto de Moura, SANAA (previously featured at AD), danish artist Olafur Eliasson, and several collaborations with Cecil Balmond and ARUP.

Nouvel proposes a vivid red metal structure, which trough the reflection of its materials (steel, glass, fabric, polycarbonate) remind of classic british icons, such as the phone box or the London buses, while contrasting with the green of the park. A free standing 12m tall wall marks the presence of the pavilion.

More images after the break.