the best serpentine pavilion i have seen so far.

makes most previous ones look heavy handed. this year's party will be documented as top-down group reflection, "mirrof mirror on the roof".;.)

wow....

mmm, yeah! Light(est) footprint anyone?

i like it!

just what i would've expected from SANAA.

Yep, futureboy, that's what I said: wow.

It's really gorgeous. So minimal but sensual. The columns are ridiculously thin, I love them.

Is that Ole Sheeren in the background in the first shot? ;-)

Arup's from a couple of years ago is still my favorite... This one, though, has certain beauty in its minimalism and elegance. If I could rank it, I'd give it an 8 out of 10 :)

Boring, in my opinion, but useful and pleasant. Also, a bit of a rip-off from Niemeyer's passarelle at Ibirapuera Park in São Paulo.

actually it makes me think of some sort of food pavillion in a zoo or park.
In a good way...

I think I'm the only one who doesn't like it. The paper thinness of it is just too slight and insubstantial for me.. dagnabbit...

looks like a car port for Shagalicious Austin Powers

silverlake -

i would have said the same thing a couple of years ago. but, after experiencing some of their product designs (of all thing, an expresso cup and stainless steel service set) and living with them, i've changed my mind. i can't say their architecture always 'hits', but i finally get what they're trying to do. this particular pavilion seems to be as close as i've seen them come to the liminal edge, materially speaking, that they seem to aspire to.

what's clunky for me is the base - even if the concrete is polished, i think it was fundamentally the wrong move. all those columns should have just disappeared into a landscape below. that would have cinched it for me as the best serpentine so far. the roof is spectacular - given more time and money, i'm sure they could have done an anish kapoor and made the thing completely seamless and polished....

I don't like this at all. It has no tension within itself. It is thin slab, thin columns, thin roof. Perhaps their intent to create an anorexia of form. Nor is it serpentine. Maybe the Serpentine Gallery is just a name but this does not fit the definition of serpentine at all. It is puddly. It puddles around the tree and up to other trees like rain water after a heavy storm. But, what do I know. They are building Serpentine Galleries in London and I am drinking lukewarm coffee out of a cracked cup in Indiana.

I'm with vado. I can't quite figure out why, but my initial reaction is dislike. I'll see if I can like it more intellectually, but on a gut level, it falls flat for me. Obviously, the columns are proportioned in the sense that they support the roof, but it reminds me in a way of designs from early in school, when I (and others) would make columns and other elements far too thin--probably to support the structure, but certainly to be pleasingly proportioned. That's how this feels to me.

ehh. americans are just too used to overbearing, clunky structure and design....bah.

futureboy, just as there is a difference between clunky and heaviness, there is a difference between elegant and flimsy.

Couple more photos also on Bustler.

Also, cool bit of info.

The roof of the pavillion is made using "aluminum-faced plywood".

and Paul, those additional photos of the mirror effect make me think "more funhouse(y)...

the very nature [and the requirement] of the project is ethereal, fleeting and temporary. the concrete does muddle the concept somewhat, but making a structure disappear is a distillation of the serpentine's essence. very intriguing interpretation of a powerful visual effect with minimal means.

the paper thin-ness takes away from the form which is so oftne photographed from above, but with their reflective ceiling treatment, it must be all intentional, with the sense of discovery at the low-end of the roof...i do like the simplicity of it, and i think it has some ethereal qualities as well, but those reflections, at least through the images, are too far overbearing for my senses...i am really intrigued though, to hear someone's impressions after actually experiencing the structure...

my favorite serpentine has been ito's, btw...