Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2001 Eighteen Turns

Serpentine Gallery Pavilions: Annual Architectural Commissions and Public Programmes

Libeskind’s structure for the 2001 Pavilion was an exploration of folding techniques, a most eloquent exposition of his collapsing structural and spatial design. He was interested in an origami-like process of folding panels spiralling around to meet themselves at their own beginning. Highlighting the beauty of Kensington Gardens and the Serpentine 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. A simplified version of Libeskind’s design for the Victoria and Albert Museum’s Spiral, the Pavilion foreshadowed the forms of his later proposal for the replacement of the World Trade Center in New York.