With the first rays of sun burning through the dark and rainy clouds that have dominated the skies so far this year, it’s time to start turning our attention to the warmer months and the recently announced 2014 Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion is one of the first up on the grid. This year it’s going to be created by Chilean architect, Smiljan Radic and by the look of the artist’s impressions it looks like it’s going to be a modernist take on the ancient concept of shelter.
Looking like a giant cave on the outside, complete with an overhung open air sheltered area, the CGI depiction of the pavilion seems like it’s got ancient dwelling written all over it, especially considering the fact that it rests on massive, rough-hewn quarry stones. However, Smiljan’s design is based on a sea shell and when you see it from the other side in the night depiction below, that starts to be a bit more apparent.
Things get a whole lot more space-age on the inside though, as it looks like it could easily be the cafeteria from a sci-fi movie space ship. The mottled light filter effect on the ceiling gives the interior a futuristic feel, combining with the very cool viewing platform and the thick, rounded corner key lines that fly overhead.
Smiljan has already constructed the majority of the pavilion back in Chile, so it probably won’t arrive in the UK until the last minute ahead of its launch in June. The 2014 Summer Pavilion will run from the 26th June until half way through Autumn on the 19th October, giving us all a long stint to fit in at least one trip to the Serpentine Gallery.
Radic has got a pretty easy gig to follow after the slightly disappointing 2013 Serpentine Gallery Summer Pavilion, Sou Fujimoto’s white pole construction, but there’s a long line of excellent entries before it to inspire the Space Shell. These have included Jean Nouvel’s impressive angular, red framework in 2010, Peter Zumthor’s secret garden in 2011 and Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei’s shimmering
disc in 2012.
Smiljan Radic’s Summer Pavilion builds on his previous work, The Castle of the Selfish Giant, which was inspired by Oscar Wilde’s story of the same name. When it’s installed in June it will occupy a space of 350 square metres out in the usual spot on the lawn of the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. In addition to the open air cave-like seating space underneath the pavilion, it’ll also house a cafe inside with a look-out window on the rest of the park.
On selected Friday nights between July and September, the pavilion will be the centrepiece of the Serpentine Gallery’s Park Nights, which are sort of similar to the Natural History Museum’s late night opening, but with more of an outdoor feel. Art, poetry, music, film and literature will all feature as a part if the 8 Friday night events.
The 2014 pavilion sees the Serpentine Gallery celebrate it’s fourteenth year of hosting the summer architecture installation. It continues in the gallery’s annual tradition of featuring some of the world’s most influential architects and raising the medium’s profile as an art form in itself.
The pavilions build on the slightly magical feeling that Hyde Park seems to have, adding to the child-like wonder a visit can instil in you. That probably sounds a bit off, but honestly take a walk through the park from any entrance and stumble on the Serpentine Gallery when the pavilion is up and running and you’ll probably be more inclined to get what we’re talking about.
