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Pavilion as an architecture of new placeness : a

case of Serpentine Pavilion project

Hyejin Jung & Soram Park

To cite this article: Hyejin Jung & Soram Park (2022): Pavilion as an architecture of new
placeness : a case of Serpentine Pavilion project, Journal of Asian Architecture and Building
Engineering, DOI: 10.1080/13467581.2021.2024197

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JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
https://doi.org/10.1080/13467581.2021.2024197

ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY AND THEORY

Pavilion as an architecture of new placeness : a case of Serpentine Pavilion

project
Hyejin Jung and Soram Park
Department of Architecture, Inha University, Incheon, Republic of Korea

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Pavilions are flexible, open architectural structures, usually erected in parks and gardens. And Received 20 January 2021
they played a significant role in the political and cultural propaganda through international Accepted 22 December 2021
exhibitions in the 19th century, as well as in the presentations of new technologies and KEYWORDS
materials. By focusing on the concept of temporality, this study takes a novel approach and Pavilion; placeness;
examines the role of the pavilion from the perspective of nomadic, wandering cultures through temporality; the Serpentine
a case of Serpentine Pavilion Project. This study is based on the interpretive and critical Pavilion; place for events
approach which relies on gathering cases and references about the phenomenon or literature
in hand. We provide a history overview and trace the changes in the concept of place at the
dawn of the modern era, investigating how the Serpentine Pavilion reflects a modern under­
standing of placeness. Essentially, it argues that the pavilion, as a special temporary architec­
tural form, can be used as the foundation of modern discourse on placeness. As a material and
spatial alternative to such placeness, the pavilion constitutes an important architectural type.

1. Introduction
Held annually, the Serpentine Gallery’s Pavilion
Project presents artwork that illustrates a materialis­
tic way of expressing new ideas, despite being con­
structed as a temporary structure in the museum’s
space. The contemporary pavilion seems to have
established itself as a symbolic work to declare the
identity of the architect and the agenda of contem­
porary urban architecture. Pavilion began to appear
in the architectural discourse when the exhibit hall
constructed as a political and cultural exhibit for
world fairs popularized in the 19th century and
was named pavilion. Through the exhibitions’ pavi­
lion, architects of the time presented new technol­
ogies and forms symbolizing their culture.
Modernists later used it as a model to demonstrate
their own architectural solutions or the architect’s
biography (Dodds 2005). Dodds (2005) and Samson
(2016) highlighted its theoretical role, focusing on
exhibition constructions such as the Barcelona
Pavilion. Their studies also showed that the pavilion
was essentially a reflection of the constructional
form of wandering and nomadic cultures, the oppo­
site of settlement. From this, we reveal that it is an
architectural form expressing modern places based
on mobility and nomadic culture that existing the­
ories of place based on fixed settlements cannot
explain. However, the role of the pavilion as a
spatial reproduction of a particular thought and
institution ironically stems from its temporary nat­
ure. The definition of a pavilion is a “light temporary
or semipermanent structure in the garden”.
According to this definition, the main attributes of
the pavilion are lightness and temporality. If the
monument is a structure fixed to the ground with
a ceremonial spirit that yearns for eternity, the
pavilion is a tent built for a short time on a field
where certain valid experiences are held during
specific moments. In other words, if a monument
is built to permanently preserve a particular spirit,
the pavilion is a surface spread out to relish events
of relatively momentary experiences and percep­
tions. In this light, the pavilion has the potential
to become an architectural form that exposes the
historical limitations of discourse on place, which is
based on the permanence from poetic dwelling and
location of construction and universality (Heidegger
1971). This study is based on the interpretive and
critical qualitative approach which relies on gather­
ing cases and references about the phenomenon or
literature in hand. This approach was done by col­
lating, analyzing and interpreting data to reach
acceptable generalizations. Therefore, this study
argues that the pavilion, as a special temporary
architectural form, can be used as the foundation
of modern discourse on place. To this end, we trace

CONTACT Soram Park park.soram@gmail.com 103 Dong 103 Ho. 27, Gwanak-ro 30-gil, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Zipcode: 07031
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group on behalf of the Architectural Institute of Japan, Architectural Institute of Korea and
Architectural Society of China.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
2 H. JUNG AND S. PARK
the changes in the concept of place at the dawn of
the modern era and investigate how the Serpentine
Pavilion, as a historical one and a modern artwork,
reflects contemporary understandings of place.
We argue that modern universal architectural spaces
result from “placelessness.” Moreover, they are new sites
that enable us to discover the conditions of a “new
place” that reflects modern life and thoughts.
2. From rooted place for dwelling to floating
space for events
The tendency to emphasize the “place” as part of an
act of reflecting on modernity stems from Heidegger,
who realized the existence of modern people. The
place is understood as “the material background and
specific location where humans build social relation­
ships and have a subjective and emotional attachment
to.” (Cresswell 2013). In other words, the place is a way
in which humans exist in relation to the world and
refers to their existence itself, including the existence
being granted meaning or expressing it.
This concept of the place emphasizes “rooting
down” in contrast to a sedentary agricultural life
and a wandering nomadic one and argues that the
place is the spatial construction of the continuous
time of the sedentary life. Citing Hölderlin’s verse,
“Human beings live on the earth
poetically.”(Heidegger 2000). Heidegger considered
the combination of the place of dwelling and its
meaning to be its essence. The Greek temple that
he used as an example reveals the nature of the
place, which had been concealed by the construction
of a particular site and by it “standing there.”
According to Heidegger, Das In-Sein is already an
entity that “resides” and cannot be separated from
the site it is located in, thus establishing its own
space. Dasein can become an open and creative
being through art because the essence of artwork is
a phenomenon of truth weaved by concealing and
revealing. In other words, Dasein earns its location, or
place in the world by building its own reproduction.
The spatial experience associated with a particular
spirit formed through a relationship with nature pro­
vides a figure to the location through a boundary and
threshold. In addition, the building as a whole inte­
grated into the act of building is a container that
collects through the object–body fourfold through
its relationship with nature and is simultaneously a
“place of dwelling.” Heidegger viewed the architec­
tural space, integrating construction and reproduc­
tion as a “place” through the equivalence of the
building–dwelling.
However, as the internationalist style and urban
design ideologies based on modernism were universa­
lized along with the emergence of an industrial society,
the modern urban architecture landscape, distinct
from the historical landscape, changed the perception
of the place where it took root and the architectural
space it was representing. Notably, Relph (1976,) and
Shultz (2019) declared that modern urban architecture,
characterized by “an open and fluid vast space that
causes a loss of a sense of direction, a weakening of the
symbolism of façade, and a weakening of regional
differences,” is a space of “Placelessness.” The modern
space is difficult to provide the experience of the tradi­
tional “location” due to its tendency to pursue univers­
ality and technological rationality, replacing regionality
and history.
Interestingly, modern architects agonized over the
format of expressing modernity, which is the reason for
“placelessness” in a symbolic way. S. Giedion, in parti­
cular, believed in the necessity of monumentality in
modern architecture and demanded the reintroduc­
tion of symbolism into architecture in a way different
from that of the past.
As modernists who rejected the foundation and
corrupted ornament of the past looking for a stable
form that would maintain the new values of the time,
Cenotaph for Newton (1784) by Etienne-Louis Boullée,
Barcelona Pavilion (1929) by Ludwig Mies van der
Rohe, and others played the role of messengers of
the symbolic values despite their temporary quality.
Since transportation technology has become com­
monplace in the modern age, lands and regions have
become fragmented and the scope of urban life has
been greatly expanded, depriving the proximity of the
former era; however, at the same time, it has recon­
nected things that had been disconnected and were
far apart, bringing back a different sense of proximity-
remoteness. This has revitalized the regional impor­
tance and accelerated the speed of globalization. In a
global modern society where communities in varying
places can be formed and dismantled by electronic
network technology, individuals can “select” a place
without a connection to existing places or commu­
nities. Even if there is a place where the community
and the place are equivalent, the place is experienced
differently for each member (Massey 1994).
From the perspective of viewing nomadic dwelling
in its essence, the state of fixating the place is rather
special and exceptional. From this point of view, a
home is the basis for discovering and occupying the
surrounding environment – it is more of a boundary
rather than a place and an act of producing differences
(Dal Co 1990).
Francesco Dal Co saw that the solidarity of the
“dwelling–home–place” was dismantled by the de-
mythologization of the dwelling. He also saw that all
the roots and the “loss of home” outside of the dwell­
ing were the essence of life. He believed that the
essential character of a home lies in wandering as an
indispensable alternative to establishing a dwelling.
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
The modern way of existence continues to perceive
the place as a production of an event, rather than a
revelation of something that permanently exists (Rubio
2004). Defining dwelling and location as a continuous
production of individual events is to understand the
binary oppositional relationship between settlement
and wandering as a noncontrastive relation. An event
refers to the act of establishing a place and to trans­
form a universal and permanent place into a separate,
transient form of occupancy (Derrida 1986). With the
emphasis on location as a production of events, the
uniqueness of the physical site and the importance of
fixed forms show a tendency to fade.
The efforts to establish the unique symbol of the
modern civilization drive-by transportation technology
and mass industrial production aim to overcome the
force of gravity and thus regard the act of “taking root”
at a place as a loss of uniqueness and peculiarity. The
ideal expressed by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux’s spherical
house, which first appeared in the 18th century, was a
denial of constructive foundation that had been con­
strained by gravity. The anti-constructive foundation
and simultaneity enabled by amplified mobility
brought freedom and transparency into the surface
of architectures (Giedion 2009).
Meanwhile, the sense of placelessness and mobility
weakened the uniqueness bound with a site and a
place and the authenticity derived therefrom. It is well-
known that the process of “commercialization” where
the uniqueness of a good separated from a place trans­
forms into disposableness and repetitiveness has been
accelerated by the culture of world fairs popular in the
19th century. On “placelessness,” the architecture of
the 1970s referred to the emotional connection
between humans and places or environments “topo­
philia” (Tuan 1974) and highlights the endemism and
regionality of lands and materials. In addition,
Frampton emphasized the architectonic suitability for
a particular site through critical regionalism and urged
resistance against the homogenization trend of mod­
ern capitalism through the means of specific material­
ity (Frampton 1983).
Site specificity, which appeared in art, began with
the early work of minimalism and that of Richard Serra,
and confronted modernist tabula rasa in the context of
a particular land to have meaning only in that space.
The works cannot be moved to the exhibition without
dismantling them, and thus, they have been given
authority because of this (Miller 2013). However, sub­
sequent critical works take issue with the institutional
influence of the framework of a particular place itself,
break down the equivalence between it and the work,
and emphasize the work or process of the place.
Considered important in performance art are “ges­
tures, events, and performances performed within the
3
framework of temporary boundaries,” and the work is
understood to reflect non-configuration and tempor­
ality as a movement/process (Kwon 2004).
Additionally, post-industrial theorists focus on the
trends of deformation and non-materialization of the
material world by electronic media. Virtual experiences
through the media and simulation deprives the experi­
ence of tactile integration from phenomenological
bodies. Simulacre, as a reproduction, is not a real
experience and questions the authenticity of the
place (Baudrillard 1992).
Such critical responses to the loss of the place of
modernism seem to emphasize the focus on ideologi­
cal places and their de-materialization. At the same
time, however, values such as originality and author­
ship strayed from the object and leaned toward the
location. Although recent place-oriented works may
seem to have lost the material basis of the place due
to trends such as emphasis on events and perfor­
mances, and de-objectifying and de-spacing, artworks
always seem to be combined with the exhibition site.
In addition, the concept of the event as a regenerative
action of the place itself and a resistance to the already
established order defines the understanding of the
modern place.
3. Pavilion: from shelter to events
3.1. Temporary but original: shelter or shrine
The word “pavilion” originates from the French archaic
word pavellun, derived from the Latin word papilio,
which means butterfly. It refers to the temporary nat­
ure of tent structures presented as moving, extraordin­
ary, thin, and light images resembling butterflies.
Pavilion in architecture is commonly considered as a
“lightweight and largely open structure dedicated to a
single purpose” (Samson 2016) and refers to a shelter
in a garden or an exhibit hall. In addition, it is a free-
standing unit exposed in all directions and expresses
“the idea of architectural shelter.” Marc-Antoine
Laugier (2009) proposed a single-cell type of shelter,
“primitive hut”, constructed with natural objects to
explain the fundamental elements of architecture.
The idea of primitive hut as a shelter for humans
unprotected from nature emphasized the rooted con­
struction based on the tectonics of the pillars and
beams anchored on the ground as the origin of archi­
tecture; but in fact, such structures intended to func­
tion as roofs and walls across the fabric as a barrier
between nature and human bodies. Fundamentally,
fabricated tents indicated that the dwelling was to
cover the exposed body. The tent was originally a
form of construction for nomadic dwelling. After
humans adopted a lifestyle of settlement, it provided
4 H. JUNG AND S. PARK
temporary living quarters for trade and transport. As
such, “place of dwelling,” which encompass settlement
and wandering, were divided into two constructive
forms. One was the mass of masonry construction
and the bond between the foundation and the ground
to support it, and the other was the fabrication of the
bough and cloth. Settlement is a vertical force perpen­
dicular to the ground, and mobility is a lateral force
drifting the surface of the ground.
The tent also enables reconciliation and coexistence
with nature. A garden is known as a combination of the
Hebrew gan, which means “fence,” and Oden, which
means “joy.” The etymology of garden means the
humanization of nature and the experience of joy felt
there. The ancient garden was a place of leisure for
contemplation, relaxation, and hunting, as well as a
venue for events for the display of power. Persia’s
gardens were intended to be a “paradise” that did
not just lock nature up and domesticate it, but an
area in which humans could unite in complete recon­
ciliation with nature. The paradise was square, and the
crossroads divided the place into four; the pavilion was
at the center as a temporary human residence
(Farahani, Motamed, and Jamei 2016).
Persians referred to the king’s tent as “heaven” and
re-painted the sky on the inside of the roof walls. The
desire to humanize nature through artistic activities
that “re-enact” the dual attitude toward it on the sur­
face of the architecture emerged. The garden, as culti­
vated nature surrounded by fences, is a humanized
outer world, and the pavilion in it is an artifact repre­
senting humanized dwelling in preparation for nature,
not an area for daily residence. As such, the pavilion in
the garden is a constructive extension and establish­
ment of its meaning. The symbolic aspects of the
pavilion were inherited through aedicula and ciborium.
Both were small temples in the form of canopy, but if
the aedicula was a way to express the “the human
action that protects and celebrates that which is lawful
and civilized, despite its closeness to the void outside,”
(Samson 2016) the ciborium was a small pavilion inside
a church, containing the meaning of the divine world
in the order of the civilized shrine. In each case, the
pavilion was the establishment of human positions
and territories within the shrine as a reductive Nature,
either as a garden or as a divine threshold. As a single
free-standing shelter, the pavilion expresses the origi­
nal constructive principle of architecture and as a tem­
porary shelter in a garden, it plays the symbolic role of
expressing the twofold perceptions toward nature.
3.2. Pavilion in landscape garden: folly for
pleasure
The pavilion in the garden served as a reduced version
of the original form of sacred and institutional things,
as well as a place of pleasure to express individuals’
desires. This stems from the fact that the pavilion is a
temporary residence in a non-routine and nomadic
place. Folly, referring to a whimsical structure, is a
homophone to folie, which means madness, and it
has a dual meaning. Similar to the meaning of the
word, the folly of the garden took a free form away
from institutional style and formalism. If the pavilion
functioned as an official resting place for the garden,
the folly served as one of the elements or decorations
of the landscape. It was also a device that provided an
element of surprise and eccentricity, rather than a
feature that completes the entire scene. Therefore,
people wandering in the garden were temporary resi­
dents in the pavilion, but became travelers looking for
non-routine enjoyment when walking between the
follies. The folly, which was inside the mansions of
the nobility for private pleasure, emerged as an impor­
tant formal element in the picturesque garden, which
became common in England in the 18th century. As an
important aesthetic object to complete the landscape
of the picturesque garden, the fabrique followed the
stylistic standards of the external decoration of the
folly and the reductive structure of the pavilion
(Symes 2014). The exterior followed the norms of the
classical style, but the scale was reduced to an unin­
habitable level and had no interior space. It was an
important object to complete a single idealized land­
scape of arcadia, along with camouflaged boundaries
and calculated locations to “appear natural.” The sty­
listic facade completing the arcadia represented an
ideal place, but only worked as an ideological image,
depriving it of residence. However, fabrique is an
important exhibition to realize a picturesque garden
with nature being an integrated ideal. The position and
external appearance are most important in the overall
placement of the garden. Therefore, the key elements
for the pavilion were its location and appearance
within the entire layout of the garden. The epidermatic
display for visual delight made those walking in the
garden travelers rather than residents. This helped to
make walking in public space an important social rite.
The disappearance of “gan” from the picturesque gar­
den is not irrelevant. The spatial relationship that dis­
tinguished it from nature was concealed and reduced
to a subject only with the epidermis for visual enjoy­
ment. Along with this, the important symbolic function
of the pavilion – the expression of dual emotions of the
hidden gods in nature and the desire for nature – also
disappeared, and the characteristics of the formalistic
transformation for the epidermatic style dominated
the architecture of a pavilion.
3.3. Follies for events
The interior space of the pavilion, removed from the
fabrique, was recovered in the follies at Parc de la
Villette. Bernard Tschumi, who designed its master
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
plan, brought back the pavilion as a place of action
through follies. At the time, the pavilion was the physi­
cal equivalent of the deconstructivist spirit of the time,
replacing the meaning of the power and paradise of the
pre-modern pavilion with modern thought. Folly is a
spatial version of the discourse of deconstructivism of
Bernard Tschumi and Jacques Derrida. At that time,
Tschumi viewed that the primary issue of modern
urban planning was the return of activity and program
as “functions” because architectural ideologies of pre­
vious eras served to stabilize society and perpetuate the
system. He also focused on the problem of capturing
human dynamic and unpredictable movements in
urban architectural space. Architecture is not just a
space and form, but an event and action that takes
place in a space. He argued that the architectural
space should be transformed into a field where con­
flicts, disjunction, and dismantlement of programs
occur, and coincidental events are triggered anew.
This resulted in the denunciation of classical norms
and a deconstructionist platform of autonomous com­
binations of reduced geometric elements. Tschumi’s
follies were shown as a constructive play in which
basic geometric elements such as dots, lines, and
planes were autonomously combined in grid systems.
The simplest reduced geometrical elements are consid­
ered as neutral form factors that do not enforce any
social norms. It is assumed that the void space between
the form factors functions as an open field for activity. If
a fixed and traditional place was leaning on a solid
boundary reminiscent of a thick fabrication and the
resulting stark sense of boundary, the place of activity
and event appeared to be a neutral empty space cre­
ated between autonomous geometric elements devoid
of meaning. Neutral form factors are generated by
morphological variations and should not contain sym­
bolic meaning; only the play activity of people should
produce temporary meaning. The movement of people
is what is important, and the advent of an event means
that various movements invade the architectural space
(Tschumi 1981). Derrida, in particular, defined an event
as the “establishment of a place to live” and evoked
Heidegger’s notion that building is the act of forming a
dwelling itself. Therefore, the provision of the shape of
a void where an event can take place becomes the sole
responsibility of architecture, and the place of dwelling
becomes the place of the event. The pavilion, like fol­
lies, became a sort of a stage and a field that encom­
passed the scenes of events where various acts of
movement took place.
3.4. Rootless Pavilion
The desire for architecturalization of the sensitivity of
art of movements is the main motivation for modern
architecture. As an ideal pavilion, Ledoux’s “House of
Gardener Project in the Town of Chaux”, according to
5
Sedlmayr, was the starting point of denying “some­
thing constructive”(Sedlmayr 1957). Avant-gardist El
Lissitzky proposed that it was the vision for the future
to overcome the base tied to the lands and experi­
mented with the vision in Buckminster Fuller’s
Dymaxion House. Named on the basis of “Dynamic +
Maximum + Tension,” it was inspired by “Ger” from
Mongolia, which is a traditional residence of the
nomads as a mobile architecture.
A single foundation like a tent is built with the
weight supported with tensile force toward the single
central mast. Fuller attempted to provide “a sustain­
able autonomous single-family dwelling, the living
machine of the future” for nomadic residence suitable
to the mobile technology and mass productions of
machinery in the modern age. A radical example of a
mobile machine for residence is “Cushicle and
Suitaloon” by Michael Webb, who proposed the
“Dwelling Capsule Concept” (Figure 1). People practice
“minimal residence” by wearing an inflatable tent and
relying on a cushicle machine that aids movement. By
getting rid of all elements of material construction of
architecture of the past, it shows that the ensemble of
“body-cloth-machine” is the original element of noma­
dic residency.
While they presented a single structure restored
with minimal clothes and mobility machine as an archi­
tecture for nomadic dwelling, “Concert Hall Project
Montage” by Mies van der Rohe (1942) presented the
sensitivity of mobility with an abstract structure by
inserting weightless (or rootless) wall-plane within a
broad space of machinery image. It looked as if it was
floating without supporting the roof formed with the
then-modish technology of the space frame, and the
wall at the boarder defining the broad space was
removed, such that the space became a field extend­
ing without limit. By turning and juxtaposing the wall
and roof, which are the basic constitutive elements of
architecture, into an abstract plane that is flat and
expanding, it reflects the reality of mechanical resi­
dence in the modern era and idealism toward taking
off the lands.
As such, the architectural experiments that pursue
an anti-gravitational form reflecting the changing rea­
lity of residence driven by the amplified mobility have
weakened the concept of “the authenticity of a space
that is unique and fixed” based on the binding rela­
tionship with the lands.
3.5. Serpentine Pavilion project as a “site-
specific” work
Several authors who believed that the restoration of
the uniqueness and individuality of space was a cure
for modern diseases tended to highlight only the work
operating in this particular space. Site-specific works
are an attempt to reclaim lost individuality and
6 H. JUNG AND S. PARK
Figure 1. Dwelling capsule concept in “Cushicle and Suitaloon”, 1967.
uniqueness from the site and place, viewing modern
homogenized and universalized places as the causes of
the failure of modernist art. In response to the fact that
modernist architecture and artwork pursued a mova­
ble object of autonomy in tabula rasa, it set the estab­
lishment of an inseparable relationship between work
and place as its top priority. Thus, an object or event is
not perceived as a visual manifestation through the
eyes separated from the body, but rather as something
that is being experienced “now, here” by the subject
and through the user’s physical sight and re-evokes
the place.
The Serpentine Gallery’s Pavilion Project (2000~) is
an example of a temporary exhibition at the extension
of “site-specific art” (Table 1). This is an event-type
exhibition that operates temporarily by condensing
the architectural philosophy of the architect selected
by the gallery every summer in the garden of
Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. Through the project,
the Serpentine Gallery extends outside the white cube,
making the pavilion an event-like object in the gallery
garden and a folly. The gallery hosts a summer night
event set in the pavilion every year. Through this, the
museum is expanded into a garden of the public,
simultaneously functioning as a forum where it can
meet the public without boundaries and transform
into a social place. In 2006, the pavilion’s designer
Rem Koolhaas emphasized the social aspects of the
project, describing it as “proposing a place that facil­
itates the inclusion of individuals in communal dialo­
gue and shared experience” (Jodidio, Köper, and
Bosser 2011).
The architects who participated in the Serpentine
Pavilion Project questioned the philosophical, political,
and ecological challenges facing architecture today,
“arguing against ideas of sign, symbol or irony, bring­
ing about notions of tactility, materiality, tectonics, and
authenticity.” (Patteeuw and Szacka 2019). Tactility and
materiality are based on a phenomenological under­
standing of space, which emphasizes the physical and
sensational perception of a space called a “sense of
place.” For an architectural structure to touch people’s
hearts, materiality must be
emphasized since it must be able to trigger tactile
sensations appealing to common memory and atmo­
sphere. This is an important part of architectural resis­
tance proposed by Frampton, stressing the tactility
and indigenous materials and the tectonic aspect to
restore the regional cultures that have been domi­
nated by the universal civilization of modernity. The
practical form of “placelessness” from the perspective
of architectural autonomy is the purely technical struc­
ture that is distinct from the tectonic aspect of a struc­
ture. Architectural structural elements, in essence,
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING 7

Table 1. The Serpentine gallery’s Pavilion project.

Years Architects Image Representation
2000 Zaha Hadid Morphological approach,
which reinterprets the
primitive tent-form
pavilion
Years Architects Image Representation
2010 Jean Nouvel Showing the context and
memory of a space
through classic British
icons

2001 Daniel Libeskin Experiment with 2011 Peter Highlighting the

deconstructivism by Zumthor atmosphere of a space
creating a single roof through reinterpretation
with an irregular form of materials, proximity to
the ground surface and
tactile experience
2002 Toyo Ito Experiment with 2012 Herzog & de The symbolic role of
exoskeleton, single crust Meuron connecting the past and
by algorithm and Ai the present through an
Weiwei archeological excavation
and exhibition of the
vestige of the old pavilion
2003 Oscar Niemeyer Expression of movements 2013 Sou Fujimoto The tectonic of thin white
and lines by combining steel pipes expresses
floor-façade-roof ephemeral modern
phenomena.
2004 MVRDV(unbuilt) Emphasis on the symbolic 2014 Smiljan Radić Combination of local
role of the agenda of materials with tensile
sustainability by structure
renewing the original
space
2005 Álvaro Siza & Technological tent structure 2015 SelgasCano Delivering the message of
Eduardo by grid module and new design needs to connect
Souto de material with nature and feel part
Moura of the landscape by
presenting new
architectural experiences
to the public through
new typology and
materials
2006 Rem Koolhaas New materiality and 2016 BIG- Bjarke Experiment with create any
tectonic suggesting Ingels imaginable form using
antigravity form mass-produced elements

2007 Olafur Eliasson Exclusive possession of the 2017 Diébédo Proposing an environmental
& environment through Francis agenda through local
Kjetil visualization of Kéré materials, tectonic and
Thorsen ascending circular ecological design
movement
2008 Frank Gehry Timber structures, garden 2018 Frida Highlighting the
parties, a flock of Escobedo atmosphere of a space
butterflies, and a military through reinterpretation
catapult created by of materials, proximity to
Leonardo da Vinci to the ground surface and
present a new space tactile experience
based on tectonic
2009 SANAA Providing a neutral space 2019 Junya Homogenization of nature
through reflective Ishigami and artificial construction
materials and extending using sustainable
horizontal roof canopy materials in an innovative
structure
2020 Counterspace Discourse to deploy
environmental issues by
using recycled materials

Figure 2. Serpentine Gallery Pavilion as a tectonic notion (a) Zumthor (2011); (b) Escobedo (2018); (c) Fujimoto (2013).
 8 H. JUNG AND S. PARK
according to Frampton, are the “act of transforming
architectural actions into artistic practices.” That is
equivalent to an emphasis on tactile elements of a
structure. Furthermore, Juhani Pallasmaa said that
“the materials from the nature (stone, brick, tree)
allow our perspectives to pierce into their surface and
to trust their authenticity,” (Pallasmaa 2012) and
argued that tactility comes from the depth of time
one has penetrated into the superficial features.
Within the Serpentine Project, the theme of which is
tactility, notable works include Zumthor (2011) and
Escobedo’s (2018) pavilion, which emphasize the
atmosphere through proximity to the architecture’s
surface and tactile experience, and Fujimoto’s (2013)
work, which expresses the ephemeral contemporary
phenomena through the tectonic of thin white steel
pipes by presenting structures that permeate the sur­
rounding landscape (Figure 2).
Additionally, works by Radić (2014) and Kéré (2017)
that apply the local characteristics of the materials and
construction techniques can be understood based on
“Critical Regionalism,” (Frampton 1983), which com­
bines universal modern technology with local culture
Figure 3. Serpentine gallery Pavilion as a combination of
tectonic and representation (a) Radić (2014); (b) Kéré (2017).
Figure 4. Serpentine Pavilions as an imagery reproduction (a) Libeskind (2001); (b) Zaha Hadid (2000); (c) Toyo Ito (2002); (d)
SANAA (2009); (e) Eliason & Thorsen (2007).
Figure 5. Serpentine gallery Pavilion as a place for discourse for social problems (a) Kéré (2017); (b) Escobedo (2018); (c)
Counterspace (2020).
(including geographical characteristics) as an architec­
tural strategy for the same problem consciousness
(Figure 3). Examples, unlike the characteristics of the
pavilion, that uniquely do not have a deep foundation
on the site, provide a cavernous space by offering a
surrounding interior space through site cultivation, in
contrast to primitive huts and are also seen as practices
of resistance against the placelessness. Zumthor’s
(2011) pavilion is particularly interesting (Figure 2(a)),
with its columnless structure and layout reminiscent of
the inner courtyard of medieval monasteries and black
timber wall’s coordination, which resists against the
fact that modern architecture has devoted itself to
transparency and provides a cavernous space decon­
structing the Greek order or primitive hut (Mallinson
2011).
Meanwhile, it is an important task of Serpentine
Pavilion Project to present new sociality and an archi­
tecture form suitable thereto.
These are projects that provide a model of modern
technological construction through the experiments of
Libeskind’s (2001) deconstructivism autonomy, the
new morphology shown by pavilions by Hadid
(2000), Ito (2002), and SANNA (2009) of an atypical
single roof, and the plan to induce Eliason and
Thorsen’s (2007) movement; they offer the architect’s
iconic style in a sculpting manner (Figure 4).
The works by Kéré (2017), Escobedo (2018), and
Counterspace (2020) presented rain-collecting roof
structures, local material textures, and unique con­
struction methods, aiming to provide a place for dis­
course for social problems and debate under the
ecological and cultural conditions of each region
(Figure 5). This is an approach that emphasizes the
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
fundamental idea of the Serpentine Project, which
aims to expand the museum to the outside world
and society by providing a place for “social discourse”
and “temporary events.”
Meanwhile, like Suitaloon by Webb, which
expresses the sensitivity of nomadic residence, an
emphasis on the curtain and surface surrounding the
body of a structure has been displayed in the
Serpentine Project.
Ito (2002), OMA (2006), and SelgasCano’s (2015)
pavilion is the outermost edge and external surface
of the inner volume, being an exoskeleton that com­
bines a skeleton devoid of an external surface of the
tectonic and the masonry’s wall that provides the
boundary between the interior and the exterior
(Figure 6). The interior space is expanded to transform
into volumes and outer layers like “inflatable
Suitaloon.” It is reminiscent of Mies van der Rohe’s
50 × 50 House, which pushed the column to the sur­
face, flattening the distinction between the roof–col­
umn–ground, and delivered the impossibility of
dwelling (Hartoonian and Frampton 1994).
These works are related to site-specific art, which trans­
form the place into concepts of audience, social issues,
and community. Now, what is specific is not the physical
conditions of the place, but the issues that the people
who occupy it are interested in. In addition, a series of
works to revive the characteristics of the place through
the relationship between artworks and the place have
become one-off events that cannot be reproduced as
they are implemented into a procedural performance.
However, unlike Tschumi’s follies, which act as a
venue for routine events, the Serpentine Pavilion is
placed in a special context that is not routine as a
work that has been given authenticity by the gallery
authority. It is a pavilion with an interior space that
serves as a venue for events in the park for a certain
period, as well as an exhibit of the museum space,
including the garden, as a recognized work of art.
This is in line with the phenomenon indicated by
Kwon (2004) in which authorship replaces authenticity.
When works that are meaningful only in certain places
are (re-) installed and (re-) displayed in other exhibi­
tions, place-boundedness is replaced through the
Figure 6. Serpentine Pavilions as an emphasis on the curtain and surface surrounding the body of a structure (a) Ito (2002); (b)
OMA (2006); (c) SelgasCano (2015).
9
author’s “presence.” Therefore, authorship guarantees
the quality of the work, and such authorship is estab­
lished by the authority that accredits it. Serpentine
Gallery, through its own authority, places architects
on the ranks of artists and star architects, contributing
to the brandification of architecture.
In the modern world, in which the process of a
product losing its location is referred to as commercia­
lization, the product type is a medium that conveys the
essence of the object(Foster 1993), and the product
becomes one only when it is a symbol(Lefebvre 2005).
In other words, objects that are devoid of its location
become symbols, and symbols, in place of the location,
provide a visual and textual experience. The cultural
power of a specific location and the artistic authority of
the gallery, in this case, the extended gallery area of
the Kensington Garden, provides the one-off pavilion
its own identity and authorization, making it the gal­
lery’s icon or the architect’s symbol. The pavilion after
having been temporarily used as a stage where social
programs operate, will then be recorded via texted
records in books, articles, and works by artists. The
objects built on the site are replaced every year, but
the memory of having been a field for works and
events is carved into the place. Thus, the repetitive
one-off characteristic of events shown in this project
is combined with identity and authorship to produce a
new authentic placeness that supplants the concept of
a place of permanence.
4. Discussion
The pavilion is a place for temporary dwelling, but it
has been constructed as a primitive building type, tent,
or conical and cubic form, to symbolize the human
domain of nature. Samson (2015), citing Colin Rowe,
said that “the pavilion as architecture here appears, in
its archetypal Western realization, as a repertoire of
normative elements” and that “conceptually a pavilion
and usually a single volume, it aspires to a rigorous
symmetry of exterior and (where possible) exterior.” In
addition to the pavilion in the garden, the aedicula and
the ciborium, which reproduced the “Holy of Holies”
inside the cathedral, took a primitive form consisting of
10 H. JUNG AND S. PARK
Figure 7. The origins of buildings and orders.” Sir William
Chambers (1722–1796). Primitive buildings of conical and
cubic form c.1757.
pillars and roofs. As a symbolic place for the human
domain in nature, the primitive form was effective in
revealing only the duality of hope and concealment of
the sky beyond human reach. (Figure 7)
However, the pavilion of the picturesque garden
was an ornamental sculpture that did not express
mankind’s mind to nature through architectural con­
structiveness, but presented a kind of visual norm for
the appearance and placement of buildings within
nature.
Nevertheless, the pavilion’s characteristic of symme­
trical single volume has the advantage of being able to
access and view it from four directions, making it
suitable for the role of symbolic structures containing
specific thoughts. For this reason, the pavilion was
built in expo, the arena of national competition, to
express national symbols. Likewise, it has been treated
as a piece of sculpture symbolizing the typology of
modern architecture.
Tschumi’s folly was shown as a tangled structure of
place and field and as an actor and its receptor through
an autonomous combination of geometrically reduced
points, lines, and plane elements. Fragmented or slop­
ing constructors free from gravity make the whole folly
look more like a sculpture of composition than a tec­
tonic. As such, the pavilion has two aspects of archi­
tecture, tectonic and representation, which are
characterized by a weak physical bond with the site
and an imagery reproduction to the construction tech­
niques, depending on the temporality of events.
For architecture to embrace the new social identity
as a space for actions and events, the geometrical
autonomy of an object, as the nature of a pavilion,
must be neutral with respect to meaning and symbol.
As such, a pavilion has played the role of symbolizing
the ideal nature, modernity, and new social identity.
The symbolic role of a pavilion has been effective as an
autonomous free-standing structure based on a
loosely binding relationship with lands and a one-off
temporary structure that can be approached
experimentally.
As such, the construction and the surface of the
pavilion that expressed the dual perception of nature
and architectural principles of primitive construction
gradually weakened its constructivism, and its sym­
bolic surface has been increasingly emphasized. In
the modern era, it was a condensed manifestation of
new society and technology, thereby earning a new
view of constructivism and the surface. The Serpentine
Pavilion project shows that reflective attitudes toward
modernism after the 1950s and the 1960s have
evolved to emphasize time, programs, and events, or
to explore locality, the site and material properties as
an autonomous combination of geometric fundamen­
tals, or to reject symbolic descriptions and to reveal the
material and tectonic configuration itself.
5. Conclusion
As such, the pavilion is an architectural response to
modern, mobile culture, replacing the transition from
permanency to events oriented on temporality, the
coexistence of epidermality and tactical materiality,
and site-specificity with branding authorship.
A place represents an integration of production
and being by establishing a place of dwelling
through things and positioning it in the world.
The place of this dwelling takes root on the site
and acquires a permanent physical bond with the
world. In contrast, the life of wandering and
nomads is different in that it is ephemeral in
terms of the depth and time of rooting-down. The
rooted place of domiciliation is represented through
the masonry construction of heavy stones, but
nomads built a tent structure by setting branches
and hanging fabric. Moreover, the place of settle­
ment was a material expression of institutional per­
petuation such as religious and political power,
while the place of wandering and deviation was
temporarily installed outside the castle or built in
a secret form inside the garden. Such pavilions were
treated as an imagery reproduction of a stylized
institutional place. The king’s tent with the heaven
drawn into it or the fabrique reflect such character­
istics. The epidermic surface of the fabrique is the
result of the evolution of the “tourist gaze,” (Crang
2016) which converts the material and spatial qual­
ity of the place associated with the site into a visual
object or image.
 JOURNAL OF ASIAN ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING ENGINEERING
However, the pavilion as free-standing shell or
frame around a place reduced the building program
into artistic features playing the role of a model that
revealed the architecture’s archetype.
This characteristic was the main reason why the
exhibition hall, an event space for showcasing symbols
of the new era, was commonly referred to as the
“Pavilion.” Only at the fair, the pavilion not only plays
a symbolic role in the institutional spatial style that the
former site of the settlement contained, but also has
been given the function of a place to promote and
convey social values.
Today, the modern pavilion serves as a model for
reducing contemporary agendas of architecture, while
also being a venue for site-specific art events to accom­
modate social programs. As a symbolic building that
will serve as a venue for social exchange and public
debate, the Serpentine Pavilion has been placed in the
ranks of an artwork through the authorship given by
the identity of star architects and the gallery – and the
site-specificity.
Such site-specific art emphasizes the location and
materiality of the site as a basis for recovering identity
and univocity believed to have been lost during mod­
ern times. The common purpose of site-specific works
was to discover the meaning of differences and
uniqueness in places. However, as the number of tour­
ing exhibitions that leaned on the author’s identity
gradually increased, the authority of the gallery
replaced the specificity of the site, and the time-ness
of the change acquired through the bond with the
place transformed into qualities such as temporality
and repeatability of the event. It is interesting that the
discourse on site-specificity that emerged with the fear
from the fact that the originality of the work lies in the
aura fixated in the uniqueness of the place, and the
power of modernity lies in the loss of the aura, invok­
ing a placelessness was reproduced centered on
“events and performances” that emphasize the place.
Its reproductions were characteristic in that they could
not be repeated to revoke the uniqueness of that
place. The traditional place-boundness, in which aura
and uniqueness are carved into the site and things
through constant repetition, was to ironically return
through its characteristic of being non-repeatable.
This seems to be an effort to overcome the present-
day crisis of representation (Kaminer 2011) (Vesely
2004) through the emphasis on authorship and the
repetition of events.
The reality that the pavilion is operating as a popu­
lar place and as an artwork reveals the decline in its
architectural role as a historical monument, both as a
social institution and as a cultural symbol. The monu­
ments placed in the community’s spatial environment
constantly expose and evoke the events that need to
11
be preserved and delivered to the community mem­
bers. The monument is not originally intended for
dwelling but is an object that functions symbolically.
The construction of the monument is a collective
proposition, with the festive nature of poiesis or “build­
ing.” The monument appears to be on the opposite
side of the “place of dwelling,” given that it excludes
residence and has a propositional non-routine nature.
However, it has been considered a typical “place of
permanence” because the purpose of the monument
is ultimately to equalize and perpetuate the collective
values of the community.
Concerned about the loss of modern monumental­
ity, Sert, Léger, and Giedion (1958) emphasized the
importance of the role of monumentality in the new
society, saying that “monuments . . . have to satisfy the
eternal demand of the people for translation of their
collective force into symbols.” Art historian Riegl (1982)
mentioned the nature and status of monuments that
have changed in the modern era and argued that the
new unintentional monuments have emerged in addi­
tion to the “intentional monuments” from the past. The
nature of modernity, which pursues newness and
changes, has ironically given rise to the worship of
things from the past that have disappeared, pursuing
symbolism by granting aura to historical objects or
adding a historical image to newly emerged objects.
Unlike the past, the modern era featured monuments
honoring the historical traces of old objects, and objects
of history in the museum were considered to have an
aura. An old object that came from a place of things
belonged to an institutionalized one like gallery or
museum, and it was recognized for its aura and origin­
ality. In other words, the intangible system of empower­
ing things and its space has replaced the traditional place.
The pavilion, thereby, is a model of “place” for
modern people. It emphasizes its temporality in the
aspect of time, focuses on new morphological con­
struction and phenomenological materiality in the
aspect of tectonic, and acts as a field of discourse
and event where individual-anonymous socialities
intersect. As a material and spatial alternative to such
placeness, the pavilion can be considered an impor­
tant type of architecture.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the
author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by the Inha University under Grant
[61504-01].
12 H. JUNG AND S. PARK
Notes on contributors
Hyejin, Jung., Ph.D., Assist. Prof., Department of Architecture,
Faculty of Engineering, Inha University, Incheon, South
Korea. Her research interests concern the architectural and
urban design, spatial characteristics, and theory of placeness.
Soram Park., Ph.D., Visit.Prof., Division of Architecture,
Myongji University, Yongin, Republic of Korea. Her research
focuses on theory/history and its interrelationship with archi­
tectural and urban design.
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