Serpentine

Press Release
Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012
Designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei
1 June – 14 October 2012
Serpentine Gallery
Kensington Gardens
London W2 3XA
T [phone]
F [phone] www.serpentinegallery.org The Serpentine Trust is a limited company registered in England under number 2150221
It is an educational charity, which is funded by Arts Council England and Westminster City Council
Registered charity number 298809
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The Serpentine Gallery is proud to announce that Herzog & de Meuron and Ai
Weiwei will create the 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. It will be the twelfth commission in the Gallery’s annual series, the world’s first and most ambitious architectural programme of its kind.
The design team responsible for the celebrated Beijing National Stadium, which was built for the 2008 Olympic Games and won the prestigeous RIBA Lubetkin
Prize, will come together again in London in 2012 in a special development of the
Serpentine’s acclaimed annual commission which will be presented as part of the
London 2012 Festival, the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad. The Pavilion will be
Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei’s first collaborative built structure in the UK.
This year’s Pavilion will take visitors beneath the Serpentine’s lawn to explore the hidden history of its previous Pavilions. Eleven columns characterising each past
Pavilion and a twelfth column will support a floating platform roof 1.5 metres above ground. Taking an archaeological approach, the architects have created a design that will inspire visitors to look beneath the surface of the park as well as back in time across the ghosts of the earlier structures.
Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, Serpentine
Gallery, said: “It is a great honour to be working with Herzog & de Meuron and Ai
Weiwei. We are delighted that