Billowing over the green of London’s Kensington Gardens like a jagged stone sail, Junya Ishigami’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion shows that after 19 editions, the annual program has not lost its capacity to stimulate and surprise. The thin canopy rises from three corners, heaped with thick flakes of loose-laid slate, its frayed hems almost brushing the grass in some places and soaring to 15 feet in others.
Its enigmatic character evokes an abundance of allusions, from ancient stone barrows to the ruffled feathers of “a big black bird in the rainy sky over London,” as Ishigami suggests, and reflects the Japanese architect’s longstanding preoccupation with the intimate interplay between man-made and natural environments. “I wanted to design this structure as something between architecture and landscape,” he says, “to make a stone garden in front of the gallery building, or a piece of scenery continuous with its own slate roof.”
You have 0 complimentary articles remaining.
Unlimited access + premium benefits for as low as $1.99/month.