Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011

Serpentine Gallery Pavilions: Annual Architectural Commissions and Public Programmes

The concept for Peter Zumthor’s 2011 Pavilion was the hortus conclusus – a garden within a garden – and included a specially created garden by the influential Dutch designer Piet Oudolf. Visitors entered from the lawn and began the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – a meditative interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. With this Pavilion, as with previous structures, Zumthor emphasised the sensory and spiritual aspects of the architectural experience, from the precise yet simple composition and ‘presence’ of the materials, to the handling of scale and the effect of light.