This is already the 15th Summer Pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery, which can be considered an enviable achievement: the gallery was a pioneer among the organizers of such architectural programs, which later spread to different countries and continents. At the same time, its temporary pavilions are invariably popular and are among the ten most visited architectural and design events in the world.
Oddly enough, the director of the Serpentine Gallery Julia Peyton-Jones and her colleague Hans Ulrich Obrist set themselves very strict limits: from the moment the project is ordered to the architect to the opening of the pavilion, it takes no more than six months; this time the construction took only seven weeks.
What already
noted Archi.ru, in recent years novice architects, known for their bold experiments, have been invited to participate in the program. However, before that, almost all the "super-stars" of world architecture managed to work with the gallery, which, among other things, is an eloquent testimony to the conservatism of local customers. All the authors of the pavilions in Kensington Garden at the time of design had not yet managed to build anything in England: this is the main condition of gallery owners, since the goal of the program is to acquaint the London public with the work of masters who are still few or completely unknown to them. In such a situation, one can expect that young people will prevail among the participants, but the first, in 2000, the pavilion was built by Zaha Hadid, followed by Rem Koolhaas, Jean Nouvel, Frank Gehry, Toyo Ito, MVRDV, Snøhetta - architects in demand all over the world, which for some reason did not appeal to English developers. Some of them have since managed to implement projects in England, but the rest are still out of the game. It can be assumed that investors do not like "iconic" buildings, but Alvaro Siza and Peter Zumthor also made it to the Serpentine list. The fact that British clients, both commercial and government, are looking for easy ways is also confirmed by criticism from major local architects, for example, David Chipperfield, who prefers to work in Germany.
But back to the summer program at Kensington Gardens. All pavilions, except for the decorative and entertainment function, play the role of a cafe in the daytime, and at night they can accommodate concerts, round tables, sponsorship parties, etc. The 2015 pavilion was no exception. It is a complex structure with 4 entrances: its configuration is inspired by the chaotic movement of citizens around London, primarily in the underground. The steel structure supports a multi-colored, two-layer ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) polymer shell. Visitors have access to both the inner space of the pavilion and the corridor between the layers of its shell.
The structure looks impressive, especially in the dark, when it turns into a colored lantern - but its shell leaks during the rain, and even in cool weather the sun heats it up too much. Due to these and some other design flaws (excessive complexity of the frame, inaccurate details, etc.), architectural critic Rowan Moore
complained about the general arrangement of the Serpentine Gallery summer pavilions program. In his opinion, the organizers expect art objects from the architects, although in this field they lose to the artists working in this genre. The features of the architecture, function and presence - and attention - to details, in this case, are forgotten, which leads to the weakening of the entire concept.
But the temporary nature of the pavilion makes it easier to relate to its shortcomings: it will stand on the lawn of Kensington Gardens until October 18, and then it will be sold at auction (the proceeds will partially cover the costs of its construction). Everything will start again next year, and the result may well be better.
