The first image of this year’s Serpentine Pavilion in London, which was designed by Lebanese architect Lina Ghotmeh, has been revealed.
Set to open to the public this Friday, June 9, the pavilion in London’s Kensington Garden is a circular timber structure that shelters a “concentric table”. Named À table, the pavilion was designed as a space for exchange and celebration.
“The pavilion emerges around this concentric table that allows people to get together,” said Ghotmeh in an exclusive video published by Dezeen last week.
“[It’s] named À table, which is the French call to get together around the same table,” she explained. “When you’re young your parents would tell you to come down and get together to eat, discuss.”
Ghotmeh is the 22nd architect to be commissioned for the Serpentine Pavilion since the first structure was designed by architect Zaha Hadid in 2000.
The 2023 pavilion has a timber frame with multiple gables radiating out from its centre, which was described as “echoing the structures of tree leaves”. It is surrounded by a screen to create a semi-enclosed space and wrapped by a colonnade.
“The structure is like a leaf,” said Ghotmeh. “If you look in a microscope at a leaf, if you will see this main vein.”
The pavilion will be designed using a modular system and will be “disassembled and reassembled” after the summer installation.
More images of the pavilion will be published on Dezeen later today.
Ghotmeh is the latest Serpentine Pavilion to be built in Kensington Garden in central London. It follows last year’s Black Chapel, which was designed by artist and designer Theaster Gates. Previous Serpentine Pavilions have been built by architects such as Frida Escobedo, Bjarke Ingels and Sou Fujimoto.
French-Lebanese architect Ghotmeh leads Paris-based architecture studio Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture. Her Stone Garden apartment block in Beirut was named architecture project of the year at the Dezeen Awards 2021 and Ghotmeh also spoke to Dezeen about how working in the city has changed since the devastating explosion in 2020.
The photo is by Iwan Baan, courtesy of Serpentine Galleries.
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