SelgasCano’s Colorful Serpentine Pavilion Coming to Los Angeles

Selgascano La Brea — Second Home Serpentine Pavilion by SelgasCano as it originally appeared in London in 2015. The installation will open at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles on June 28, 2019.

*Photos by Iwan Baan, Courtesy of Second Home*

Architects & Firms

SelgasCano

SelgasCano’s prismatic 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, coming to Los Angeles this June, will be the first structure of 18 iterations of the Serpentine Gallery’s annual program to travel to the United States. Originally installed in Kensington Gardens, in London’s Hyde Park (where, since 2000, names such as Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry, Olafur Eliasson, Herzog & de Meuron, and Bjarke Ingels have have displayed their own pavilions), the cocoon-like structure, wrapped in a multi-colored translucent ETFE membrane, will be reassembled on the grounds of La Brea Tar Pits—the only consistently active urban Ice Age excavation site in the world. The new location will host a diverse program of public talks, film screenings, and other events—a collaborative effort by Second Home, a London-based social business committed to supporting entrepreneurship, and the Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC). The slate of activities will focus on themes at the intersection of art, science, design, nature, and innovation.

The pavilion, which will be open for five months beginning on June 28, comes right before the opening of Second Home’s first Hollywood location, also designed by SelgasCano, in the late summer. “We’ve fallen in love with Los Angeles—its beauty and chaos, its light and shadows, its contradictions, sub-cultures and people,” said Sam Aldenton, co-founder and co-CEO of Second Home. “The Second Home Pavilion is a celebration of this: our love letter to LA.”

Alex was an associate editor at Architectural Record. Prior to joining the magazine, she worked in marketing and communications for New York–based architecture firms. Her writing has appeared in the Architect’s Newspaper and CityLab. Alex holds a master’s degree in design criticism from the School of Visual Arts and a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University.