Serpentine Gallery

Julia Peyton-Jones OBE

Co-director
,

“It has been a great honour to work with Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, the design team behind Beijing's superb Bird's Nest Stadium.

In this exciting year for London we are proud to be creating a connection between the Beijing 2008 and the London 2012 Games.

We are enormously grateful for the help of everyone involved, especially Usha and Lakshmi N Mittal, whose incredible support has made this project possible."

[The steel magnate Lakshmi N Mittal and his wife are lead supporters of the 2012 Serpentine Pavilion. It will enter their private collection once it has closed to the public in October.]

The Design Team

Herzog and De Meuron and Ai Weiwei

Jacques Herzog (left) and Pierre de Meuron / Herzog & de Meuron © 2011, Marco Grob

“Every year since 2000, a different architect has been responsible for creating the Serpentine Gallery’s Summer Pavilion. So many pavilions in so many different shapes and out of so many different materials have been conceived and built that we instinctively tried to sidestep the problem of creating an object, a concrete shape.

Our path to an alternative solution involved digging down five feet into the soil of the park until we reach the groundwater. There we [created] a kind of well to collect all of the London rain that falls in the area of the Pavilion.

As we dig down into the earth to reach the groundwater, we encounter a diversity of constructed realities such as telephone cables, remains of former foundations or backfills. Like a team of archaeologists, we identify these physical fragments as remains of the 11 pavilions between 2000 and 2011.

On the foundations of each single pavilion, we extrude a new structure as load-bearing elements for the roof of our Pavilion. The roof floats a few feet above the grass of the park, so that everyone visiting can see the water on it, its surface reflecting the infinitely varied, atmospheric skies of London. For special events, the water can be drained off the roof as from a bathtub, from whence it flows back into the waterhole."

"The roof floats a few feet above the grass of the park, so that everyone can see the water on it, its surface reflecting the infinitely-varied, atmospheric skies of London"

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei/ © Ai Weiwei

Espa, Pavilion sponsor

Susan Harmsworth MBE

CEO,

Espa

"ESPA shares a common ethos with the Serpentine Gallery; that great architecture and design can enrich lives and act as a creative springboard for new thinking and ideas.

This year’s Pavilion concept is no exception. The vision of the design team of Herzog & de Meuron in collaboration with Ai Weiwei and their archaeological approach "to inspire visitors to look beneath the surface as well as back in time," perfectly reflects ESPA's rich heritage in designing iconic spa environments and creating beautifully effective natural products.

ESPA’s philosophy is all about striving for natural elegance in everything we do. We combine the design and management of prestigious spas across five continents with the creation of pioneering, natural products. The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion is an appropriate reflection of the brand’s pioneering commitment over two decades to our core brand values.

ESPA will be celebrating its British heritage throughout 2012 by embarking on a series of collaborations with British cultural institutions, artists and luminaries that showcase the best in design and expertise."