The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion commission is an ongoing programme of temporary structures by internationally acclaimed architects and designers. The series is unique worldwide and presents the work of an international architect or design team who has not completed a building in England at the time of the Gallery’s invitation.

The Pavilion commission, conceived in 2000 by Gallery Director Julia Peyton-Jones, has become an international site for architectural experimentation and follows a decade of Pavilions by some of the world’s greatest architects. Each pavilion is sited on the Gallery’s lawn for three months and the immediacy of the commission – a maximum of six months from invitation to completion – provides a unique model worldwide.

Past Park Nights

Past Marathons

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013
Designed by Sou Fujimoto
8 June - 20 October 2013

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013 will be designed by multi awardwinning Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto. Occupying some 350 square-metres of lawn in front of the Serpentine Gallery, Sou Fujimoto's delicate, 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. more...

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Archive
2000-2012

Complete archive of all our Pavilions and temporary architectural installations. Past Pavilion architects to date are: Jean Nouvel, 2010; Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, SANAA, 2009; Frank Gehry, 2008; Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen, 2007; Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, with Arup, 2006; Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura with Cecil Balmond, Arup, 2005; MVRDV with Arup, 2004 (un-realised); Oscar Niemeyer, 2003; Toyo Ito with Arup, 2002; Daniel Libeskind with Arup, 2001; and Zaha Hadid, 2000.

Explore Serpentine Pavilions on Google Art Project

The Serpentine Gallery is partnering with Google Art Project to enable universal access to the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion commission and the Marathon series of events, which takes place in the Pavilion each year. The Serpentine will be the first architecture partner in this ambitious project, which allows virtual visits to museums and galleries around the world 24 hours a day. Documentary images of all eleven Pavilions and the events that took place in them are available online through Google Art Project. For 2012, visitors will be able to tour Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei's visionary Pavilion through Google Street View.