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London | Serpentine Pavilion 2016 by BIG BJarke Ingels Group

Place: London, Country: United Kingdom
Serpentine Galleries

Serpentine Pavilion 2016

by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group

Text by Inexhibit
Project description by Bjarke Ingels
Images, courtesy of BIG

By BIG Bjarke Ingels Group (https://www.inexhibit.com/author/big-bjarke-ingels-group/) - June 14, 2016

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content/uploads/2016/02/big-serpentine-pavilion-2016-ph-baan-01.jpg)

Architect Bjarke Ingels in front of the Serpentine Pavilion 2016 designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG); Photo Iwan Baan

Serpentine Wall |The Serpentine Pavilion 2016 by Bjarke Ingels Group

Two elements (replicated and shifted in space hundreds of times) form the Serpentine Summer pavilion which from June 10 to October 9, 2016 welcomes visitors at
Kensington Gardens in London.
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above:Serpentine Pavilion 2016 designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG); Photo Iwan Baan

Since the #rst edition, in 2009, the pavilion is a eagerly anticipated venue for who want to listen music, enjoy live performances, or simply sip a cup of tea, while looking at
the gorgeous natural environment around.
Furthermore, due to its being an ephemeral structure, the pavilion is an intriguing occasion for the architects who, each year, are commissioned the design of an micro-
architecture living only a season.
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Hence, the design of the 2016 edition of the Serpentine Pavilion, conceived by the acclaimed Danish practice BIG Bjarke Ingels Group, copes with the need to create a
temporary architecture, which can be built quickly and with a limited budget, by devising an elegant structure generated by warping a wall made of only two elements,
bricks and joints.
The outcome is a welcoming, organic-shaped, space well capable to interact with the public and the fascinating landscape around it.
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content/uploads/2016/02/serpentine-pavilion-2016-BIG-wall-components.jpg)

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Serpentine Wall.
Project description by Bjarke Ingels

For the Serpentine Pavilion 2016, we have attempted to design a structure that embodies multiple aspects that are often perceived as opposites: a structure that is free-
form yet rigorous, modular yet sculptural, both transparent and opaque, both box and blob.
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We decided to work with one of the most basic elements of architecture: the brick wall.
Rather than clay bricks or stone blocks the wall is erected from extruded #berglass frames stacked on top of each other.
The wall is pulled apart to form a cavity within it, to house the events of the Pavilions programme. The unzipping of the wall turns the line into a surface, transforming the
wall into a space. A complex three-dimensional environment is created that can be explored and experienced in a variety of ways: inside and outside. At the top, the wall
appears like a straight line, while the bottom of it forms a sheltered valley at the entrance of the Pavilion and an undulating hillside towards the park.
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The unzipped wall creates a cave-like canyon lit through the #berglass frames and the gaps between the shifted boxes as well as through the translucent resin of the
#berglass.
As a result, the shifting overlaps as well as the movement and presence of people outside create a lively play of light and shadow on the cave walls within.
The materials include wooden oors and extruded Fiberline pro#les, providing every surface with a warm glow and linear texture from the mesh of woven glass #bers to
the undulating lines of the grain of the wood.
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content/uploads/2016/02/serpentine-pavilion-2016-BIG-render-02-1.jpg)

This simple manipulation of the archetypical space-de#ning garden wall creates a presence in the Park that changes as you move around it and through it. The North-
South elevation of the Pavilion is a perfect rectangle. The East-West elevation is an undulating sculptural silhouette. Towards the East-West, the Pavilion is completely
opaque and material. Towards the North-South, it is entirely transparent and practically immaterial. As a result, presence becomes absence, orthogonal becomes
curvilinear, structure becomes gesture and box becomes blob.

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All images courtesy of BIG Bjarke Ingels Grouphttp://www.big.dk/#projects (http://www.big.dk/#projects)

Serpentine Summer Pavilion | 2016

June 10 / October 9, 2016
The Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens, London
http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/ (http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/)

WHERE IS THIS? FIND IT THROUGH MYMUSEM SEARCH

SERPENTINE GALLERY

(https://www.inexhibit.com/mymuseum/serpentine-gallery-london/)

The Serpentine Gallery at the Kensington Gardens, London, is one of the most important contemporary art centers and exhibition venues in the United
Kingdom

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