A new planning application has been submitted for the erection of a temporary architectural pavilion for a period between 11 June 2021 - 17 October 2021.

Architect Counterspace will finally see its vision for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion realised in 2021.

The pavilion is expected to open on 11 June 2021.

Westminster Council ref. no. 21/00418/FULL.

The Serpentine Pavilion 2020 is designed by Johannesburg-based practice Counterspace led by the all-woman team of Sumayya Vally, Sarah de Villiers and Amina Kaskar.

Counterspace’s design will be based on gathering spaces and community places around the city, folding London into the Pavilion structure in Kensington Gardens, and extending a public programme across London.

The shapes of the Pavilion are created from a process of addition, superimposition, subtraction and splicing of architectural forms, directly transcribed from existing spaces with particular relevance to migrant and other peripheral communities in London.

On its 20th anniversary, more than ever, the Serpentine Pavilion will be a place for debate and new ideas. A live programme running throughout the summer connects to the Serpentine’s ambitious multi-platform project Back to Earth and sets out to explore questions such as: how can architecture create a space where we are all linked, not ranked? How can architecture promote wellbeing? Can a structure evolve and change together with the environment?

The Pavilion will include moveable small parts that will be displaced to neighbourhoods across London. Following community events at these locations, the parts will be returned to the structure, completing it over the summer.

Employing a mix of low-tech and high-tech approaches to sustainability, the Pavilion will be constructed from a variety of materials, including custom K-Briq-modules and cork provided by Amorim. K-Briqs are made from 90% recycled construction and demolition waste and are manufactured without firing, with a tenth of the carbon emissions of normal bricks

The lead architect on the project, Sumayya Vally of Counterspace, commented:
“The pavilion is itself conceived as an event — the coming together of a variety of forms from across London over the course of the Pavilion’s sojourn. These forms are imprints of some of the places, spaces and artefacts which have made care and sustenance part of London’s identity. The breaks, gradients and distinctions in colour and texture between different parts of the Pavilion make this reconstruction and piecing together legible at a glance. As an object, experienced through movement, it has continuity and consistency, but difference and variation are embedded into the essential gesture at every turn. Places of memory and care in Brixton, Hoxton, Hackney, Whitechapel, Edgware Road, Peckham, Ealing, North Kensington and beyond are transferred onto the Serpentine lawn. Where they intersect, they produce spaces to be together."

The pavilion will be open for public from 11 Jun 2020 to 11 Oct 2020.

For the seventh year running, AECOM, in collaboration with David Glover, will deliver multidisciplinary engineering and specialist technical services for the Serpentine Pavilion of 2019.

The new temporary pavilion has been designed by Japanese architect Junya Ishigami.

AECOM will provide the full range of engineering and technical advisory services required to deliver the Pavilion, working closely and collaboratively with the architect, Serpentine Galleries and the project’s contractor Stage One to transform the architect’s intent from vision to built reality.

Read more at aecom.com.

The new Serpentine Pavilion 2017 designed by Francis Kéré will be open from 23 June 2017 to 8 October 2017!

New photos of the 2014 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Smiljan Radić.

We have added a few photos of the new Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013 by Sou Fujimoto.

The Serpentine Gallery has announced that Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei will create the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. It will be the twelfth commission in the Gallery's annual series, the world's first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind.

The design team responsible for the celebrated Beijing National Stadium, which was built for the 2008 Olympic Games, comes together again in London in 2012 for the Serpentine's acclaimed annual commission, being presented as part of the London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad. The Pavilion is Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei's first collaborative built structure in the UK.

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. 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.

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.

Source: Serpentine Gallery www.serpentinegallery.org

We have been waiting for this - new planning application submitted for erection of a temporary pavilion.

Westminster City Council Ref. No. 12/01182/FULL received 03.02.2012. More information: www.westminster.gov.uk/planning.

Two more weeks left to visit this year's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Peter Zumthor!