Opening, The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013

Visitors look at the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion on June 4, 2013 in London, England. Architect Sou Fujimoto discusses his visionary design for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013, a delicate, cloud-like structure that experiments with immateriality and weightlessness. Widely acknowledged as one of the most important architects coming to prominence worldwide, Sou Fujimoto (born 1971) is the leading light of an exciting generation of artists who are re-inventing our relationship with the built environment. Inspired by organic structures, such as the forest, the nest and the cave, Fujimoto's signature buildings inhabit a space between nature and artificiality.

Describing his design concept, Sou Fujimoto said: "For the 2013 Pavilion I propose an architectural landscape: a transparent terrain that encourages people to interact with and explore the site in diverse ways. Within the pastoral context of Kensington Gardens, I envisage the vivid greenery of the surrounding plant life woven together with a constructed geometry. A new form of environment will be created, where the natural and the man-made merge; not solely architectural nor solely natural, but a unique meeting of the two."

In this talk - the first of a series of public events that will take place in the 2013 Pavilion over the summer - Sou Fujimoto speaks about his practice and the concepts driving his designs.

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013 will be designed by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. Occupying some 350 square-metres of lawn in front of the Serpentine Gallery, Sou Fujimoto's latticed structure of 20mm steel poles will have a lightweight and semi-transparent appearance that will allow it to blend, cloud-like, into the landscape and against the classical backdrop of the Gallery's colonnaded East wing.

Venue.- Serpentine Gallery. Kensington Gardens. London W2 3XA. U.K.
Dates.- 8 June 2013. Time.- 3.00 pm. Tickets: £8/£6

Note.- Due to the nature of the Pavilion, the event has limited capacity and is ticketed. Limited space may be available on the lawn adjacent to the Pavilion on a first-come, first-served basis. The Pavilion is an open structure. As such, please be aware that weather conditions may affect the events.

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SOU FUJIMOTO

Sou Fujimoto was born in Hokkaido, Japan on August 4, 1971. In 1994 he graduated in architecture at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Tokyo. He established his own architecture studio, the agency Sou Fujimoto Architects, in Tokyo in 2000, and since 2007 a professor at Kyoto University.

He was first noticed in 2005 when he won the prestigious AR – international Architectural Review Awards in the Young architect’s category, a prize that he garnered for three consecutive years, and the Top Prize in 2006.

In 2008, he was invited to jury these very AR Awards. The same year he won the JIA (Japan Institute of Architects) prize and the highest recognition from the World Architecture Festival, in the Private House section. In 2009, the magazine Wallpaper* accorded him their Design Award.  Sou Fujimoto published “Primitive Future” in 2008, the year’s best-selling architectural text. His architectural design, consistently searching for new forms and spaces between nature and artifice.

Sou Fujimoto became the youngest architect to design the annual summer pavilion for London’s Serpentine Gallery in 2013, and has won several awards, notably a Golden Lion for the Japan Pavilion at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale and The Wall Street Journal Architecture Innovator Award in 2014.

Photographer: David Vintiner