The Tamesis
The design commission for this year’s Serpentine Pavilion is LANZA atelier, a Mexico City-based architecture studio founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, a prestigious project for artists and architects associated with the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens, London. The unveiling on June 6 will mark the 25th anniversary of the Serpentine Gallery, which hosts live events and programming from summer to autumn, and will also host a dedicated architectural program in the Serpentine South this year to commemorate the legacy of Zaha Hadid, who designed the first Serpentine Pavilion in 2000.
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“For this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, Studio LANZA drew inspiration from a British architectural feature, the serpentine or wrinkled wall that forms one side of the pavilion,” reads a press release about the commission. “This brick wall of alternating curves originated in ancient Egypt and was later introduced to Britain by Dutch engineers.”
A second wall in the architectural plan “lives in harmony with the tree canopy without disrupting it,” while the translucent roof “rests gently on brick pillars, recalling a forest of woods.” Studio LANZA says the concept “both reveals and preserves: shaping movement, mediating rhythm, and setting thresholds of approach, direction, and pause.”
Serpentine Galleries chief executive Bettina Korek said the pavilion commission “provided a rare brief: to test ambitious ideas in an open, accessible environment. The pavilion was conceived as a structure that extends beyond the walls, linking architecture, landscape and people.”
“LANZA Studio’s architecture has always involved a deep engagement with local context, materials and lived experience. In their own words, they create contemporary spaces of lasting energy,” said Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries, adding that the pavilion will be “a content machine of lectures, film screenings and performances”.
