Bjarke Ingels To Design 2016 Serpentine Pavilion

There will also be four adjacent summer cottages.

Bjarke Ingels. Photo: Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan.

The annual Serpentine Pavilion, a temporary installation erected every summer on the London gallery’s lawn by a leading architect, will be designed this year by Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his firm Bjarke Ingels Group.

In addition to the main pavilion, Serpentine has commissioned architects Yona Friedman, Asif Khan, Barkow Leibinger, and Kunlé Adeyemi to create a series of summer houses inspired by Queen Caroline’s Temple, a restored 1734 summer home in Kingston Gardens designed by architect William Kent.

“After 15 years, the Pavilion programme has expanded. It now comprises five structures, each designed by an architect of international renown, aged between 36 and 93,” said director Julia Peyton-Jones and co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist in a statement.

The Pavilion program was conceived in 2000 by Peyton-Jones, who will retire this year, and has since become a site for experimentation by renowned artists and architects, including Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron in 2012, Frank Gehry in 2008, and Rem Koolhaas in 2006.

The 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, designe dby

The 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, designed by SelgasCano.
Photo: Serpentine Galleries.

Last year’s Pavilion—a rainbow-hued, bubble-like structure with a small cafe inside—was designed by Spanish architects SelgasCano.

Despite the continued existence of these ambitious annual projects, there is no formal budget allocated for the program. Each structure is realized in just six months through sponsorship and charitable support.

Ingels, whose eponymous architectural practice was founded in 2005 with offices in Copenhagen and New York, is among the most well-known architects in the world. Recent high-profile projects include Two World Trade Center and West 57 in New York, and the BIG Maze at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC.

The Serpentine Pavilion will be on display at the Serpentine Gallery from June 10–October 9, 2016. 


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