STONE AGE SETTLEMENT

Serpentine Pavilion 2014

Since 2000 each year in the Royal Park of Kensington Gardens in central London well know architects are designing pavilions: Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Toyo Ito, Oscar Niemeyer, Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura, Koolhaas with Cecil Balmond and Arup, Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher, Olafur Eliasson, Cecil Balmond, and Kjetil Thorsen, Gehry, SANAA, Nouvel, Peter Zumthor, Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron and Sou Fujimoto.

This year pavilion has been designed by the least well know Chilean architect Smiljan Radic and critics wrote that probably is the best pavilion that has been designed until now. It is a cylindrical, semi-transparent shell made from fiberglass and stands up in large stones. The pavilion seems like an ancient monument from Stone Age that has been discovered in the middle of the park. Ellis Woodman wrote: ’Seeming to belong at once to a world of science fiction and to a primordial past’. In some parts the fiberglass shell is cut out and therefore it seems like some parts have been destroyed throughout the years.

This pavilion combines future and past, new and old, in an approach that could be called emotional or even romantic. It makes me develop my thought around the archetype of construction, the reason behind designing and building, the rationale behind the shells. Two questions rise in the labyrinth of concepts: is architecture developed linearly all these years? Should we delve into the past and start designing all over again from the beginning?