Every summer since the year 2000, a different architect has been responsible for creating the Serpentine Gallery’s Pavilion, located by the permanent building in Kensington Gardens, an area inside London’s Hyde Park. In 2012, the gallery commissioned Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei – the Chinese artist and architect with whom the studio already had collaborated with on projects such as the National Stadium in Beijing –, to work together on the twelfth in a series of ephemeral constructions previously carried out by architects such as Zaha Hadid, Oscar Niemeyer, Rem Koolhaas with Cecil Balmond, Frank Gehry, SANAA or Peter Zumthor. With the variety of shapes and materials used in past years, the team instinctively tried to sidestep the unavoidable problem of creating a specific object with a concrete shape. Starting with an archaeological approach, the path to an alternative solution involved digging down into the earth until groundwater was reached, creating a kind of well that collects the rain that falls in the area of the Pavilion. The excavation process unveiled a diversity of constructed realities such as telephone cables and backfills of former foundations. These remnants testified to the existence of the former Pavilions and their more or less invasive intervention in the natural environment of the park. Conceptually, all of these traces of former pavilions were revealed and defined a map of remains with a complex geometry that could produce a reconstructed topography referencing that which existed before. The extrusion of fragments generates a burrowed landscape with impressive plastic qualities that is also the perfect place to sit, stand, lie down or just observe. The Pavilion’s interior is clad in cork – a natural material with great haptic and olfactory qualities and the versatility to be carved, cut, shaped and formed. On the foundations of each Pavilion a new structure – supports, walls, slices – is extruded to provide loadbearing elements for the roof with eleven supports for each former Pavilion plus a twelfth for the latest. The roof resembles that of an archaeological site, floating a few feet above the grass of the park and covered with a layer of water reflecting the varied, atmospheric skies of London. The water can be drained off into the waterhole, freeing up the roof area for performances and events.
Every year since 2000, a different architect has been responsible for creating the Serpentine Gallery’s Summer Pavilion for Kensington Gardens. That makes eleven Pavilions so far, our contribution is the twelfth. So many Pavilions in so many different shapes and out of so many different materials have been conceived and built that we tried instinctively to sidestep the unavoidable problem of creating an object, a concrete shape. Our path to an alternative solution involves digging down some five feet into the soil of the park until we reach the groundwater. There we dig a waterhole, a kind of well, to collect all of the London rain that falls in the area of the Pavilion. In that way we incorporate an otherwise invisible aspect of reality in the park – the water under the ground – into our Pavilion. As we dig down into the earth to reach the groundwater, we encounter a diversity of constructed realities such as telephone cables, remains of former foundations or backfills. Like a team of archaeologists, we identify these physical fragments as remains of the eleven Pavilions built between 2000 and 2011. Their shape varies: circular, long and narrow, dot shaped and also large, constructed hollows that have been filled in. These remnants testify to the existence of the former Pavilions and their more or less invasive intervention in the natural environment of the park.
All of these traces of former pavilions will now be revealed and reconstructed. The former foundations and footprints form a jumble of convoluted lines, like a sewing pattern. A distinctive landscape emerges which is unlike anything we could have invented; its form and shape is actually a serendipitous gift. The plastic reality of this landscape is astonishing and it is also the perfect place to sit, stand, lie down or just look and be awed. In other words, the ideal environment for continuing to do what visitors have been doing in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions over the past eleven years. The pavilion’s interior is clad in cork – a natural material with great haptic and olfactory qualities and the versatility to be carved, cut, shaped and formed.
On the foundations of each single Pavilion, we extrude a new structure (supports, walls, slices) as loadbearing elements for the roof of our Pavilion – eleven supports all told, plus our own column that we can place at will, like a wild card. The roof resembles that of an archaeological site. It floats a few feet above the grass of the park, so that everyone visiting can see the water on it, its surface reflecting the infinitely varied, atmospheric skies of London. For special events, the water can be drained off the roof as from a bathtub, from whence it flows back into the waterhole, the deepest point in the Pavilion landscape. The dry roof can then be used as a dance floor or simply as a platform suspended above the park.
Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, May 2012