Over the years the designs have come from architects and artist as Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei in 2012, Kazuyo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa of SANAA in 2009 or Rem Koolhaas in 2006.

This year, Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto (who at 41 become the youngest to accept the invitation) designed a large and latticed structure of 20mm steel poles with a lightweight and semi-transparent appearance that allow it to blend, cloud-like, into the landscape and against the classical backdrop of the Gallery's colonnaded East wing, covering an area of 350 square-metres.

This year, the Serpentine Gallery commissioned to the London-based United Visual Artists [UVA] transformed Sou Fujimoto’s Pavilion to create a network of LED lights that to bring a cloud-like structure to life with an electrical storm. At night the structure becomes an electrified geometric cloud that flashes and pulsates with light.  The installation is further enhanced by an accompanied soundtrack of precisely timed soundbites including the buzzing of electrical plants, effectively creating an auditory effect of thunder.

Commissioned by Serpentine Gallery for the Serpentine Summer Party, 26th June 2013.
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013, designed by Sou Fujimoto.

Read more
Read less

More information

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

Read more
Published on: September 1, 2013
Cite: "Sou Fujimoto Serpentine Pavilion Intervention by UVA" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/sou-fujimoto-serpentine-pavilion-intervention-uva> ISSN 1139-6415
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...
Loading content ...