This year’s Pavilion has been designed by Herzog & de Meuron & Ai Weiwei and takes the viewer beneath the lawn of the Serpentine to explore the hidden history of its previous pavilions. A distinctive cork landscape reveals and reconstructs the traces of these former pavilions and a new structure emerges from their foundations. Eleven columns characterising each past Pavilion and a twelfth representing the current structure support a floating platform roof that sits just a few feet above ground level and draws the infinitely changing sky into its reflective pool.
Traces of previous foundations
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012
Designed by Herzog & de Meuron & Ai Weiwei
copyright 2012, by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei
Cork landscape
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012
Designed by Herzog & de Meuron & Ai Weiwei
copyright 2012, by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei
Pavilion roof
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012
Designed by Herzog & de Meuron & Ai Weiwei
copyright 2012, by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei
Aerial view
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012
Designed by Herzog & de Meuron & Ai Weiwei
copyright 2012, by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012
Designed by Herzog & de Meuron & Ai Weiwei
copyright 2012, by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei
Image copyright 2012 Iwan Baan