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The far-out pavilion ... Gehry at the Serpentine
By Louise Jury, Evening Standard 25.03.08
Different angles: Gehry's design is made of large planks and glass
British debut: Frank Gehry has compared his design to an ampitheatre
Visionary: Gehry's design for the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao
Look here too
This summer's pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park will look like an exploded timber yard.
Architect Frank Gehry has devised a structure of large planks and multiple glass windows at different angles for what will be his British debut.
The designs, seen here for the first time, appear every bit as ambitious as his landmark buildings, such as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, the city where he's based.
Gehry, 79, described his pavilion as being “like an urban street” running from the park to the existing gallery.
“Inside the pavilion, glass canopies are hung from the wooden structure to protect the interior from wind and rain and provide for shade during sunny days,” he said.
“The pavilion is much like an amphitheatre, designed to serve as a place for live events, music, performance, discussion and debate.”
There will be terraced seating on both sides of the “street” and five raised seating “pods” around the edge. “The pods serve as visual markers enclosing the street and can be used as stages, private viewing platforms and dining areas,” said Gehry.
Serpentine director Julia Peyton-Jones said: “Frank Gehry has designed an extraordinary pavilion that opens up unexpected vistas to the gallery and the park. It is a visionary scheme.”
Gehry's pavilion will be ninth in the gallery's series of commissions. Every year a different architect, whose work has not been seen in Britain before, is charged with creating a temporary summer structure.
Rem Koolhaas, who is revamping the Commonwealth Institute, and Zaha Hadid, who has designed the 2012 Olympic aquatics centre, are among those to have made their British architectural debuts at the Serpentine.
Each pavilion is sited on the gallery's lawn for three months and erected within six months of the commission being accepted. Around 250,000 visitors every summer take part in the organised talks and events inside.
Gehry is renowned for his dramatic spectacle but while his buildings are complicated, he has a reputation for delivering them on time and on budget. He has been given many honours, including the Pritzker Architecture Prize and the gold medals of both the American and British architects' institutes.
Reader views (2)
As much admire Mr.Gehry's designs as Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao,I find his "Different Angles" as waste of all! I wouldn't wish it to be built really. Every plank seems to be ready to disintegrate.
- Gwneff, Kyoto-Japan
Another sordid looking heap of trash from Frank Gehry. Why is it that modern architects think that the more avant garde they are, the better they are? Reviewers fall all over themselves to describe architects like Gehry as 'bold' and 'imaginative' when basically these buildings are a display of artistic hubris.
In nearby Seattle we have a Gehry monstrosity - the Experience Music Project, which looks like layers of undulating, coloured Jell-o. It's truly hideous.
Give me a nice art-deco style building any day. You walk in New York and you see these lovely buildings with fine details, finials, hidden gems in the decorations; they don't look like something that's about to collapse on you.
- Hanya, Bellevue, WA
