For the last seventeen years, the Serpentine Gallery has spent a small fortune commissioning and then building a structure in its front garden. A different architect is chosen each year. They work their magic and cook up a design before handing it over to the Serpentine team and their builders to bring it to life. The Pavilion stands for a few summer weeks and hosts a party or three before being ripped down, its foundations dug up and the turf on the grassy area that is its temporary home is replaced. Until the next time. Never boring but about as practical as the proverbial chocolate teapot. As I took my photos many members of the public came in to the Pavilion, wandered round, gawped, scratched their heads, took their own photos and left
This year’s Pavilion was designed by Diébédo Francis Kéré, an architect from Burkina Faso. I don’t pretend to ever understand the reasoning behind the designs each year but am always interested in the outcome. This year’s one is made out of wooden blocks painted blue with a steel infrastructure and a roof of long brown wooden strips strapped together in symmetrical patterns. Perhaps a little underwhelming compared with some of its predecessors, it is always and only what it is: this year’s model, the 2017 Serpentine Pavilion. And like summer it should be enjoyed because it will be gone soon and the world will be a little less colourful as a consequence.
The wooden roof
A man carries part of a PA system into the Pavilion in preparation for an event
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