This year’s pavillion designed by Junya Ishigami
This year’s Serpentine Pavilion in London’s Hyde Park will open on Friday with the designer behind this year’s structure taking inspiration from roofs.
Japanese architect Junya Ishigami’s design sees slates arranged to create a single canopy roof that appears to emerge from the ground of the surrounding park.
Ishigami said the interior is designed to mimic an enclosed cave-like space to give visitors a chance for contemplation.
Previous architects to have worked on the commission include Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Rem Koolhaas. The technical consultant on the scheme was Aecom.
Meanwhile, the official press preview, which was due to take place yesterday (17 June), has been delayed until tomorrow following the resignation of the Serpentine Gallery’s chief executive Yana Peel on the eve of this year’s pavilion opening.
Peel said she had been on the receiving end of a “concerted lobbying campaign against my husband’s investments” and warned that such “bullying” would “risk an erosion of private support” for the arts. Human rights groups are believed to have been behind the campaign.
Her husband Mark Peel is a private equity investor with a majority stake in Israeli surveillance technology firm NSO Group.
It is the second controversy to hit his year’s pavilion, after it emerged that its architect, Junya Ishigami, routinely used unpaid interns to staff his office in Japan.
After a social media campaign the Serpentine announced it would insist that none of the work on the pavilion was done by unpaid interns.
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