New Spaces 09 EN

Peter Zumthor is one of the outstanding architects of our time, on a level with Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Frank Gehry, Rem Koolhaas, Oscar Niemeyer and SANAA. But one thing sets him apart: Zumthor has never built anything in London, whereas each of the others has created at least one building there. But now the Swiss architect is fi nally catching up. He has been commissioned to design this year’s summer pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery in London’s Hyde Park. That means his name can be added to the list of prominent avant-garde architects who have in eff ect left their business cards here in the heart of London. The summer pavilions — each of which stands in the park for three months — demonstrate what their creators are capable of when they are free of the pressures of bureaucratic planning and nagging clients and can experiment to their heart’s content on the green lawn next to the gallery, pushing their ideas to their limits. After all, that’s the idea behind the summer pavilion. “Temporary structures are small, but they communicate their designers’ individual design vocabularies just as clearly as permanent projects do. They are laboratories where new methods and materials can be tried out. They give us a hint of all the things that are possible,” says Julia Peyton- Jones, who has been the gallery’s director since 1991. “Another major objective is to guide the discussion of contemporary architecture in a positive direction,” she adds. As a result, the summer pavilions have become a highlight of London’s cultural calendar. The best architects compete for this commission, and it doesn’t take Peyton- Jones long to fi nd illustrious partners. The pavilions off er a glimpse of the future and provide urban planners, entrepreneurs and politicians with food for thought. They are ahead of their (respective) time — and a review of previous pavilions gives us an overview of past visions of the future. In 2000 Peyton-Jones had the idea of making the lawn next to the gallery a platform for renowned architects every summer. The briefi ng she gives to every architect she selects has remained unchanged down to the present day. The challenge is to design and build a “walk-in artwork” measuring 300 square metres in six months. Its central interior space is to serve as a café in the daytime and as a venue for concerts, fi lms and discussions in the evening. The only requirement is always that the participant must not have built anything previously in the British capital. The budget is small. The materials are provided free of charge by construction companies that sponsor the project together with numerous private individuals and other companies. The pavilions open in July and remain standing for three months. These restrictions represent a real challenge to the star architects. They can give free rein to their creativity, realise bold new ideas, be playful, try things out — and test the reactions of the public. At the turn of the millennium, Zaha Hadid, the queen of geometric extremism, started the series with a simple tent whose asymmetrical canvas roof was supported by steel beams. In 2001 Daniel Libeskind presented 18 diamond-shaped elements covered with aluminium and mounted on a wooden platform. Visitors somewhat mockingly dubbed this geometric labyrinth “Euclid on Acid”. In 2002 Toyo Ito’s austere cubist construction of steel and glass, with walls whose prism-like structure opened up ever-new vistas into and across the building, was a huge public favourite. In 2003 Oscar Niemeyer tilted the walls of his pavilion, which were made of steel, aluminium, concrete and glass, arranged them in waves and topped them with a curving canopy. His golden rule is: “Every project, be it large or small, should be capable of being summed up in a simple drawing.” Rem Koolhaas designed an infl atable hot air balloon made of translucent nylon in 2006, and in the following year Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen created a 15-metre-high circular construction around which a ramp enclosed in white nylon cables spiralled upward, bringing visitors up to the level of the treetops in the park. Frank Gehry created a construction made of wooden planks and glass surfaces pointing diagonally 53

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