This year, the Serpentine Gallery plans not only to erect a traditional summer pavilion in Kensington Gardens, next to its building, but also to complement it with four summer houses, inspired by the nearby Queen Carolina Temple - a park pavilion in the style of classicism (1734).
As it was decided in 2000, when the famous summer architectural program Serpentine began, only architects who have not yet built anything in England are invited to participate (among them in different years were Zaha Hadid, Oscar Niemeyer, Alvaro Siza, Peter Zumthor). This also applies to the five authors of the 2016 projects.
Summer Pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery 2016. Bureau BIG
The pavilion, to which the gallery's summer program was limited for the previous 15 years, traditionally serves as a cafe and a place for visitors to the park during the day, and in the evening - a space for concerts, discussions and performances.
The Bjarke Ingels bureau proposed to build it from Fiberline fiberglass profiles imitating bricks or stone blocks. As a metaphor for the project, the authors chose the image of "unzipping" the wall with a zipper (unzipping of the wall). Therefore, on the one hand, the pavilion converges into one line - the "end of the wall", on the other, it turns into a rectangular block, on the third, into a "bubble" characteristic of digital architecture. The architects compare the space inside with a cave.
Summer House of the Serpentine Gallery 2016. Kunle Adeyemi and the NLÉ Bureau
Kunle Adeyemi's project is based on the "negative" of the Temple of Queen Carolina: he took the "imprint" of its interior space for it. As a result, the classic proportions and plan of the original are read in the house, and the same sandstone from which the pavilion of the 18th century is made is chosen as the material.
Summer house of the Serpentine Gallery 2016. Bureau Barkow Leibinger
Frank Barkov and Regine Leibinger turned their project to the history of Kensigton Gardens. Now the Temple of Queen Carolina stands alone, and initially it was facing another, now demolished pavilion - erected on an artificial hill and revolving around its axis. As a result, from the inside it was possible to observe the circular panorama of the park, and from the outside, a motionless observer could appreciate the architecture of this "fun" from all sides.
The architects reflected this rotation in the building of ribbons assembled into intricate rings and bends, reminiscent of drawing without taking the pencil off the paper.
Summer House of the Serpentine Gallery 2016. Iona Friedman
The project is based on the Spatial City concept that Friedman has been developing since the late 1950s. The “spatial chain” of the summer house is part of the larger lattice structure of this city. It consists of circles with a diameter of 1.85 m. The polycarbonate sheets inserted into the structure allow it to be used for the exhibition of works of art - as a kind of mobile museum.
Summer House of the Serpentine Gallery 2016. Asif Khan
Investigating the position of the sun in the sky, Asif Khan found out that William Kent, the alleged architect of the Temple of Queen Carolina, turned his building towards sunrise on the morning of May 1 - the birthday of this English queen. The sun's rays on this day should have been enhanced by the reflection in the pond dug out according to his project - Long Water, but now this is hampered by the bridge built in 1826.
Hahn's design brings this "attraction" back to modern Londoners with an eye-catching railing of wooden planks and a mirror-polished metal platform under the roof.
