Silly Season: Serpentines and Ladders

To atone for having totally forgotten Peter Zumthor’s Serpentine Pavilion even existed last summer, I thought I’d stroll into Hyde Park and have a look at Sou Fujimoto’s effort this summer. First of all, this is the Serpentine Gallery. It’s an art gallery. Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Here’s some art outside it. Rock On Top of Another Rock

“Fischli/Weiss’s work is a finely-judged balance of humour and seriousness. Underpinning it is a spirit of discovery that encourages us to take a fresh look at our surroundings. Rock on Top of Another Rock oscillates between stability and instability, construction and destruction.”

IMG_0731Anyway, here’s this year’s Serpentine Pavilion. Whadjathink? Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Gallery PavilionWe’d better read this next thing first. Architects would hate us to make hasty judgments of the like/dislike kind without us first understanding what the fuck it was they were trying to do/”achieve”. Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Gallery PavilionThe first bit is true. After reading the liability disclaimer you can explore the “site” in new and diverse ways. To be honest, those “ways” are as contrived as they are predictable as they are dull. In fairness though, kids can relate. Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Gallery PavilionYou can take photos of your kids suspended “in the space between architecture and nature.” There are too many photos in the world.  Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Gallery PavilionIf you don’t have any kids, you can always check your messages. Tweet? Speaking of birds, London’s famous pigeons are a no-show. So far. Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Gallery PavilionThe “Donations” police (undercover, on right) transform this pavilion into pay-per-view architecture. If anybody in this day and age still gets off on “appreciating the boundaries between interior and exterior” then they can buy a cup of coffee or a piece of carrot cake or whatever and pay a second time for that intended user experience. Mouths to feed, etc.  Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Gallery Pavilion I WAS THERE. So I decided to see if the incessantly capitalised Pavilion’s “geometry and constructed forms could meld with the natural and the human” and check if “from certain vantage points, the fragile cloud of the Pavilion appears to merge with the classical structure of the Serpentine Gallery, its visitors suspended in the space between architecture and nature.” This next image was not from one of those vantage points. The (neo!-)”classical” Serpentine is obliterated. There is a certain cloudy cloud thing happening though. IMG_0728 Here, there’s a certain fency fence thing happening. I tried. I really did. IMG_0729 This is my best, though there’s not much to be seen in the way of people. Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Gallery PavilionI’ll probably stroll through Hyde Park again summer 2014 on my way to somewhere. 

2 thoughts on “Silly Season: Serpentines and Ladders

  1. Jonathan Strauss

    something been lost in translation?
    still looking for the simple cube sized to the human body………………

  2. CB Wayne

    Ho hum. In the states we call this a “jungle gym” – an ubiquitous fixture of children’s playgrounds since before the time of my birth, way back in the twentieth century. Silly me, I have always *assumed* that a Pavilion, or pavilion, is *supposed* to have – ahem – a Roof, or roof, or “roof.” How this reticulated pile of jackstraws qualifies as a) architecture and b) a pavilion astonishes and befuddles my simple mind. But thanks for the divertimento.

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