The design team responsible for the celebrated Beijing National Stadium, which was built for the 2008 Olympic Games and won the prestigious RIBA Lubetkin Prize, will come together again in London in 2012 in a special development of the Serpentine's acclaimed annual commission. Open from June to October 2012, the Pavilion 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. more...

At the heart of Peter Zumthor's practice is a refined selection of materials used to create contemplative spaces that evoke the spiritual dimension of our physical environment. As always, Zumthor's aesthetic goal is to customise the building precisely to its purpose as a physical body and an object of emotional experience. more...

The 10th Serpentine Gallery Pavilion was designed by world-renowned French architect Jean Nouvel. The design contrasted lightweight materials with dramatic metal cantilevered structures, rendered in a vivid red that, in a play of opposites, strikingly offset the green of its park setting. more...

The 2009 Pavilion was designed by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa of leading Japanese architecture practice SANAA. Describing their structure the architects said: 'The Pavilion is floating aluminium, drifting freely between the trees like smoke. Its appearance changes according to the weather, allowing it to melt into the surroundings. It works as a field of activity with no walls, allowing uninterrupted view across the park and encouraging access from all sides.' more...

The first built project in England by legendary architect Frank Gehry. The spectacular structure - designed and engineered in collaboration with Arup - was anchored by four massive steel columns and was comprised of large timber planks and a complex network of overlapping glass planes that created a dramatic, multi-dimensional space. more...

Designed by the internationally acclaimed artist Olafur Eliasson and the award-winning Norwegian architect Kjetil Thorsen, of the architectural practice Snøhetta. The timberclad structure resembled a spinning top and brought a dramatic vertical dimension to the traditional single-level pavilion. A wide spiralling ramp made two complete turns, allowing visitors to ascend from the Gallery lawn to the highest point for views across Kensington Gardens. more...

Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid and Patrik Schumacher designed a temporary installation on the occasion of the Gallery’s world-renowned fundraiser The Summer Party. It was sited on the lawn next to the Gallery where it remained for a week. more...

Co-designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Rem Koolhaas and innovative structural designer Cecil Balmond, the centrepiece of the design was a spectacular ovoid-shaped inflatable canopy that floated above the Gallery's lawn. more...

In designing the Pavilion, Siza sought to 'guarantee that the new building - while presenting a totally different architecture - established a "dialogue" with the Neo-classical house'. The result was a structure that mirrored the domestic scale of the Serpentine and articulated the landscape between the two buildings. more...

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003 was both simple and ingenious. Built in steel, aluminium, concrete and glass, its ruby-red ramp contrasted with the surprise of a partly submerged auditorium, affording views across the park. It also housed specially conceived wall drawings by Niemeyer. more...

The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2002 appeared to be an extremely complex random pattern that proved, upon careful examination, to derive from an algorithm of a cube that expanded as it rotated. more...

Highlighting the beauty of the Gardens and their connection to the Gallery, Eighteen Turns was created from sheer metallic planes assembled in a dynamic sequence. Clad in aluminium panels creating brilliant reflections of light, the structure revealed an entirely new perspective of the greenery of the park and the brick building of the Gallery. more...

Zaha Hadid's structure radically reinvented the accepted idea of a tent or a marquee. It took the form of a triangulated roof structure spanning an impressive internal space of 600sq metres by using a steel primary structure. more...