Anyone walking through the centre of Kensington Gardens will spot this year's Serpentine Pavilion. It's a towering, misshapen pyramid designed by Bjarke Ingels Group.
They've called it an 'unzipped wall' and from a distance it looks ethereal. But get up close and the design is much more industrial than at first imagined. Rectangular fibreglass frames are stacked upon each other to create the sweeping curves of the design.
Though it's interesting how the light filters through, it does seem like an odd choice of material which means it's less interesting close-up than from a distance. In the long list of Serpentine pavilions, this is largely forgettable.
As is expected with all Serpentine pavilions, this structure will host a cafe and performances in the evening. We still recommend you go and take a look.
The big addition this year is the four smaller structures — the summer houses located nearby. It's a great idea to not limit the programme to one structure, and that all four are quite different really helps them bounce off one another.
This year's highlight is Asif Khan's structure — a cleaner and more precise version of the main pavilion.
Hopefully this is the first of many years that we see both the pavilion and the summer houses.
