It's in the air already: the deeper shade of grey that is the London evening is creeping in ever faster, the days are cooler, and autumn is irrevocably upon us. No fair, we say. Seek revenge on a capital teeming with cheap options this week. Monday: Free gig tonight at Rough Trade East by delightfully symphonic experimental band F*ck Buttons. Wristband collection queue to begin at 5.30, which means you should be there before......

Depending on which side of Prince Charles you stand, it's either to our shame or credit that London has yet to welcome a Frank Gehry building. No longer: the architect's first project here, this year's Serpentine pavilion, opened last week. Gehry brings a wealth of controversies and preconceptions. To fans he's an iconoclast able to redefine entire cities (his Guggenheim museum spawned "the Bilbao effect") and design breathtaking yet functionally adept buildings on time......

Sitting in a jerry-rigged boat, floating in a flooded sculpture park atop the Hayward as the sun bustles through the clouds and lights up the London Eye, the building's Brutalist architecture almost melts away and resolves itself into a dystopian reverie, one not entirely unpleasant: the capital has been lost, and the temples of culture abandoned to the damp elements. It's a daydream easy to believe in, until the wetsuit-wearing gallery aid comes and......

A couple of news items guaranteed to register on Prince Charles' carbuncle-ometer: plans for London commissions by two of modern architecture's most innovative practitioners took a step forward this week. Back in January Frank Gehry was announced as the designer of this year's Serpentine Pavilion, the temporary build that goes up during the summer and autumn in Kensington Gardens. The structure has now been unveiled. An "urban street" that provides a covered walkway from......

Having closed its doors in 2004, and playing host to squatters in recent months, there's finally some good news to report about the Commonwealth Institute in west London. The disused building is to be the welcome recipient of £20 million development plan, with hopes to turn it into an art gallery (yay!), museum (double-yay!) or "centre for a corporate foundation" (erm, possibly yay - we're not sure what that means). This should hopefully mean......

Strange goings-on are promised this weekend at Olafur Eliasson's Serpentine Pavilion. Robots! Kissing booths! Out-of-body experiences! It can only mean one thing - the return of the Experiment Marathon. After an interview-heavy 2006 debut, this year's Marathon has doubled in length, running from Saturday to Sunday, and the focus is on balancing audience involvement and active experimentation with talks and lectures. The 'grotto' of the Pavilion (dubbed a crashed flying saucer by the Times)......

Earlier this summer we were treated to a display of the musical talent in the cultural hothouse that is South Kensington: however, the Exhibition Road Music Day was just the tip of the iceberg. Starting from yesterday until 27 August, there will be a new artistic approach to celebrating and exploring what we already know about the area and, even better, what we didn't know and would be pleasantly surprised to discover... International arts......

Well, it’s up. London’s latest dome has been inflated in Hyde Park. The giant ovoid is this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Rem Koolhaas. The architect is world famous but, as is the tradition for the gallery’s annual summer pavilion, has never built a structure in the UK before. As we previously babbled, the pavilion opens to the public on 13 July and will host a diverse range of events that cliché fans might......