Construction time again:Lina Ghotmeh and the Serpentine Pavilion.

I'd left it later than usual to make my annual trip to Kensington Gardens to see the Serpentine Pavilion (I've been going for years and have been writing about it every year since 2016 except for a Covid enforced interlude) and that meant that by the time I arrived it had been raining quite heavily and the pavilion was a little damp around its edges.

It looked pretty good though. A wooden affair with geometrical designs you may associate with the Arab world and some large tables inside where people can sit together and share food. Lina Ghotmeh's from Beirut in Lebanon so it seems likely she's been inspired by the architecture of her home city and country but she studied in France and, you can read on a small information board outside the pavilion, she's also inspired by that country's tradition of gathering over coffee and wine and having deep conversations about the issues of the day.

I visited on my own so was unable to do that (it's a lonesome life, that of a blogger) but I did have a good look at the pavilion and its climate friendly, low carbon, construction. Ghotmeh's called it 'a table' (yes!) and she's built it as if it to rhyme with the trees of Kensington Gardens as well as providing a skylight at the top that, on a sunnier day, would have let a bold shaft of light in.

The nearby Serpentine Gallery was, itself - before being converted into a gallery, a tea room so the pavilion being used to provide food and drink echoes that heritage too. There really isn't a lot to say about the pavilion except that it's a rather lovely building, I wish I'd visited with a friend, and that the yearly Serpentine Pavilion is a really great way of getting the public to take an interest in new architecture. Next time let's go as a group.