Yesterday it was my (almost) annual trip to check out the Serpentine Pavilion. Regular readers (as if they exist) of this blog will know by now that each year the Serpentine commission an architect that has never built in Britain before to construct a temporary summer pavilion by the Serpentine South Gallery in Kensington Gardens and this year it was the turn of Bangladesh's Marina Tabassum.
Or, more strictly speaking, Marina Tabassum Associates. Tabassum has built houses, mosques, museums, and spas in Dhaka and elsewhere in Bangladesh but as far as I can see this is her first project outside of her home country. It's a good one too. Possibly more formal than you might expect but certainly practical and attractive.
Tabassum is interested in environmental degradation and is always keen to interact with local communities when building - although it's uncertain just how much discussion she had with the folks of South Kensington in this instance. She's called this pavilion A Capsule In Time because she's fascinated by how architects have, since the advent of architecture as a concept, grappled with the relationship between time and building.
It's also said to be inspired by the Bengal delta but not having been there I couldn't comment on that with any degree of authority whatsoever. Tabassum has built her pavilion so you can view the Serpentine South Gallery in all its fullness and possibly compare the two very different constructions. Again, time is a factor.
She's also placed a gingko tree in the middle of the pavilion and used bamboo in its construction as a kind of nod to the sort of work she's made in Bangladesh. There are books you can read, seats you can sit on around the edges, and a little coffee bar selling drinks and snacks.
I just took in the building, the gingko tree, and the views in on a rather pleasant sunny Sunday afternoon before heading to this year's supplementary pavilion just a few yards away. Sir Peter Cook's Play Pavilion is made in conjunction with Lego and looks like a giant version of the big yellow teapot kid's toy.
Except orange instead of yellow. It's garish and it's not for the architectural purists but I'm not sure it was intended for them anyway. It's for the kids and sure enough plenty of them were lining up to go in and to slide down the slide that protrudes from the pavilion. Some of the adults went down the slide too. But probably only the ones with kids.
I didn't hang around too long. Taking photos of what is essentially a children's playground is frowned upon these days. But it looked a fun building for kids young and old. I enjoyed the juxtaposition with Tabassum's more elegant structure. Lego 1 Bamboo 2. Next year it'd be good to get a small crowd to go so I can harvest your opinions on this annual edifice.
No comments:
Post a Comment