The Serpentine Pavilion by Frank Gehry
Every summer sees a new pavilion built at the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. This summer sees a work by Frank Gehry, architect of the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum.
The pavilion is made half of wood, half of timber. Though it rests on four giant steel supports, it’s the wood and glass you notice – the organic weight of the one, the transparency of the other.
Gehry apparently based the design on military catapults drawn by Leonardo da Vinci, and there’s something quite spiky about the way the wooden struts bristle down the back of the pavilion.
But there’s also something rather interestingly random about the way the elements are arranged, like a giant game of spillikins. It seems as if Gehy has just thrown the wooden beams up in the air – it’s a miracle they stay up at all. It’s all tilt and slide and twist and skew, a fantastic game being played with the architectural elements.
It should be fun.
When: July 20 to October 19
Where: Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens
Photo of the pavilion under construction by Peter Guthrie on flickr
1 Comment
i saw it on a design trip was good