Photos: Courtesy Serpentine Gallery / © 2012, by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei
Earlier today, London's Serpentine Gallery released plans for the latest in its annual series of temporary summer pavilions. This year's installation, designed by Swiss architects Jacques Herzog & Pierre de Meuron and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei—the dynamic partnership that brought us the Beijing National Stadium at the 2008 summer Olympics—is a bit of a retrospective: The team's design features a circular roof suspended about 5 feet above earth excavated to reveal past pavilions' foundations. The hollowed out interior space will be filled with cork to mimic the color of the removed soil.
Twelve columnar supports, one for each of the Gallery's past pavilions, will support this floating roof and will, alternately, be covered with water to form a reflecting pool or drained to allow visitors to use the dry roof as a "dance floor or viewing platform," the designers suggest.
Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei join a long list of renowned Serpentine pavilion designers, including Pritzker Prize laureates Jean Nouvel (2010) and Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA (2009); Frank Gehry (2008); Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond with Arup (2006); and Zaha Hadid (2000), among others. The 2012 pavilion will be open from June 1 to October 14.
