This year’s Serpentine Pavilion in Kensington Gardens will be designed by Tokyo practice Sanaa, it has been confirmed.
The temporary structure, which will be located outside the Serpentine Gallery for three months, is the first scheme to be built in England by founders Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, former pupils of Toyo Ito, who designed the 2002 pavilion.
Commenting on the decision, BD’s Building editor Ellis Woodman said: “It is a disappointingly safe choice. With the exception of the appointment of Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura in 2005, the recent commissions have all gone to architects whose work is characterised by a bracing disregard for the history of the discipline and Sanaa belongs very much to that tendency.
