034 REPORT SERPENTINE PAVILION 2019:
ARCHITECTURE AS A LANDSCAPE; A PARK AS AN ENVIRONMENTOne’s desire to get closer to the natural
environment and the public demand to
enhance the conditions of urban life have
given rise to artificial nature in the city. The
desire for natural space within the urban
context has never diminished. Regrettably,
this artificial nature rarely settles within the
city structure, and often ends up dependent
upon other urban facilities.
Every year, the Serpentine Gallery invites
architects whose work has never been
realised within the UK to Hyde Park and
offers their front lawn to them. The recipients
strive towards a new sensibility through
mounting several spatial experiments,
pushing the envelope beyond that of a
simple architectural message. The pavilion is
packed with guests every summer, members
of the public who are keen to experience
a new spatial experiment; therefore it
becomes a kind of contemporary museum.
The presence of the park is little affected as
just another urban amenity, and the pavilion
inevitably sits as a good object.
This year, Serpentine Gallery invited Junya
Ishigami to design the temporary pavilion.
Ishigami pursues architecture as a part of
landscape instead of as an independent
building. He argues for architecture as
landscape, not as an independent object.
This issue has always been uttered in’s
and around his projects. For example, the
Kanagawa Institute of Technology’s KAIT
Workshop (2008), his first architectural
project, is set between nature and
architecture, like a forest without a
circulating promenade. That made me even
more intrigued to see how he would manage
to design a pavilion in the park out of an
artificially created landscape. My sense was
that if the pavilion succeeded as a natural
space within this scenery, then the park
must have grown into a new type of natural
space set apart from the urban context.
The image of the collage worked by
Ishigami reveals a pile of stones wet and
black in the drizzling rain. This abstractimage, without details of materials or
construction methodology, portrays two
people holding an umbrella in the rain,
staring blankly at the pavilion. However, it
was a clear day when the talk between Hans
Ulrich Obrist (artistic director, Serpentine
Gallery) and Ishigami was held. Waterproof
membranes between stones and the steel
frame were emboldened in the clear sky.
Obrist mentioned the very collage that
I had in mind: ‘We need a collage which
paves the way to a different perspective
rather than presenting a regular one’,
suggested Ishigami. His remark highlights
the importance of image in materialising
his imagination. His saying ‘I pictured the
rainy day’ reveals to us that the black of the
pavilion when wet was a scene he desired.
The abstract collage depicting the image of
the stone roof in the rain allows visitors to
relax within their own aesthetic appreciation
just as they can experience varied emotional
moments in a dense forest.
The cave-like interior reveals the objective
facts of the materials and its construction
by making the dark stone-clads and thin
columns that support the roof visible.
Ishigami noted that ‘A stone creates a
landscape, and a landscape usually sits
outside of a building. I wanted to create a
landscape inside the building’. However,
can a pile of stones change the overall
atmosphere of the park? What about
the surrounding space of the park that
remains untouched by the pavilion? Maybe
we can simply blame this separation on
the necessary size of pavilion. As soon as
we perceive the entire structure in one
glimpse, we regard it as an individual object.
The moment the pavilion is reduced to an
individual object, the park automatically
reverts to galleries.
In the past, Ishigami has worked on
distorting the proportions of scale, such
as width, height, thickness and length.
Projects such as Chapel of Valley (2017),
a chapel with a 1.3m width by 45m height,and University Multipurpose Hall (2016), with
a 100m hall enclosed with 10mm material,
frankly delivers a hope: ‘I wish to think freely;
far beyond the simple stereotypes that
restrict what architecture is considered to
be’.▼^1 His work is performed on a free scale
whilst maintaining an extreme precision in
dealing with his materials and construction
methods. However, the pavilion seems
rather ordinary in terms of materials and
construction compared to his previous
works, and its perimeter can be grasped
at a glance. There is a lack of wow-factors
derived from distorted scales. The absence
hints to us that he was focusing on other
areas, leaving us with the question ‘why?’,
rather than ‘how?’
Explaining why he chose stone as his main
material, Ishigami reflected, ‘I found that
ancient buildings from across the world
share certain similarities. You can observe
stone roofs in Japan, China and Europe.
So I started to focus on those ancient
techniques that have that universality’. In
addition, he explained that he ‘decided
to use stone to make this building and
when I thought about the context of the
Serpentine site I decided on slate. This
decision was also made because it is
a readily available British material’. The
material in the stone roof, Cumbrian slate,
which is widely used in the UK, and the most
basic method of construction is layered
over. His pursuit of universality conjures a
sense of the ‘as found’ conceived by Alison
and Peter Smithson, but Ishigami seeks
universal materials to extend the everyday
environment of park landscapes, and not to
enact new discoveries or values in everyday
life. This reconfirms that his focus was on
the landscape created by architecture. His
resolute attitude resonates with his words
that ‘I want to make buildings look old as if
they had already been’.
It is less convincing to claim that architecture
has turned into a kind of scenic design by
pursuing universality. Instead, we need topay attention to scenery in that it is always a
relationship with the surroundings. Ishigami
and his team have proved that they are
capable of converting the surroundings.
A 3mm-thick-table featured in Kirin Art
Project (2005) generates a sensation of
weightlessness by its overwhelming 9m
length, and a structure of 0.9mm carbon
fiber at the Venice Biennale, architecture
as air (2010) left people visually dazed
when roaming between the object and the
background. What kind of sensibility did he
want to twist in his Hyde Park project?
The stone-cladding ‘possesses the weighty
presence of slate roofs observed around
the world, and simultaneously appears so
light that it could blow away in the breeze.
The cluster of scattered rock levitates, like a
billowing piece of fabric’.▼^2 Ishigami added,
‘it can make a stronger surface because
it is made of small-sized stones’, brushing
off of the outmoded concept that ‘stone is
heavy’. Layers of thin, black stones, as the
architect put it, stimulate our senses as they
surrounds us with shimmering lightness.
Shedding new light on the concept of
weight, he envisions that the ‘expanse of
the scenery’▼^3 , completed by the atypical
pavilion, will refresh the park’s atmosphere.
It sometimes becomes ‘a blackbird’▼^4 flying
in the sky as well as a cave that opens out of
the earth. It reshapes the park by belonging
with varied perspectives.
The moment we look at the pavilion as a part
of the scenery, his magic twists our senses
once again. It restores our basic senses,
allowing us to realise that it is no longer an
urban space while transitioning from city to
park and park to natural scenery. The pile
of stones, which seems to have taken off
from mother earth, reveals itself as if it has
always been there. If his past works are like
acupuncture, delving into the depths with
extreme precision, the pile of stones is a
work of psychotherapy that extends infinitely
to the surroundings. For even a huge park is
reinvented as a new environment for itself,034 REPORT SERPENTINE PAVILION 2019:
ARCHITECTURE AS A LANDSCAPE; A PARK AS AN ENVIRONMENTOne’s desire to get closer to the natural
environment and the public demand to
enhance the conditions of urban life have
given rise to artificial nature in the city. The
desire for natural space within the urban
context has never diminished. Regrettably,
this artificial nature rarely settles within the
city structure, and often ends up dependent
upon other urban facilities.
Every year, the Serpentine Gallery invites
architects whose work has never been
realised within the UK to Hyde Park and
offers their front lawn to them. The recipients
strive towards a new sensibility through
mounting several spatial experiments,
pushing the envelope beyond that of a
simple architectural message. The pavilion is
packed with guests every summer, members
of the public who are keen to experience
a new spatial experiment; therefore it
becomes a kind of contemporary museum.
The presence of the park is little affected as
just another urban amenity, and the pavilion
inevitably sits as a good object.
This year, Serpentine Gallery invited Junya
Ishigami to design the temporary pavilion.
Ishigami pursues architecture as a part of
landscape instead of as an independent
building. He argues for architecture as
landscape, not as an independent object.
This issue has always been uttered in’s
and around his projects. For example, the
Kanagawa Institute of Technology’s KAIT
Workshop (2008), his first architectural
project, is set between nature and
architecture, like a forest without a
circulating promenade. That made me even
more intrigued to see how he would manage
to design a pavilion in the park out of an
artificially created landscape. My sense was
that if the pavilion succeeded as a natural
space within this scenery, then the park
must have grown into a new type of natural
space set apart from the urban context.
The image of the collage worked by
Ishigami reveals a pile of stones wet and
black in the drizzling rain. This abstract
image, without details of materials or
construction methodology, portrays two
people holding an umbrella in the rain,
staring blankly at the pavilion. However, it
was a clear day when the talk between Hans
Ulrich Obrist (artistic director, Serpentine
Gallery) and Ishigami was held. Waterproof
membranes between stones and the steel
frame were emboldened in the clear sky.
Obrist mentioned the very collage that
I had in mind: ‘We need a collage which
paves the way to a different perspective
rather than presenting a regular one’,
suggested Ishigami. His remark highlights
the importance of image in materialising
his imagination. His saying ‘I pictured the
rainy day’ reveals to us that the black of the
pavilion when wet was a scene he desired.
The abstract collage depicting the image of
the stone roof in the rain allows visitors to
relax within their own aesthetic appreciation
just as they can experience varied emotional
moments in a dense forest.
The cave-like interior reveals the objective
facts of the materials and its construction
by making the dark stone-clads and thin
columns that support the roof visible.
Ishigami noted that ‘A stone creates a
landscape, and a landscape usually sits
outside of a building. I wanted to create a
landscape inside the building’. However,
can a pile of stones change the overall
atmosphere of the park? What about
the surrounding space of the park that
remains untouched by the pavilion? Maybe
we can simply blame this separation on
the necessary size of pavilion. As soon as
we perceive the entire structure in one
glimpse, we regard it as an individual object.
The moment the pavilion is reduced to an
individual object, the park automatically
reverts to galleries.
In the past, Ishigami has worked on
distorting the proportions of scale, such
as width, height, thickness and length.
Projects such as Chapel of Valley (2017),
a chapel with a 1.3m width by 45m height,and University Multipurpose Hall (2016), with
a 100m hall enclosed with 10mm material,
frankly delivers a hope: ‘I wish to think freely;
far beyond the simple stereotypes that
restrict what architecture is considered to
be’.▼^1 His work is performed on a free scale
whilst maintaining an extreme precision in
dealing with his materials and construction
methods. However, the pavilion seems
rather ordinary in terms of materials and
construction compared to his previous
works, and its perimeter can be grasped
at a glance. There is a lack of wow-factors
derived from distorted scales. The absence
hints to us that he was focusing on other
areas, leaving us with the question ‘why?’,
rather than ‘how?’
Explaining why he chose stone as his main
material, Ishigami reflected, ‘I found that
ancient buildings from across the world
share certain similarities. You can observe
stone roofs in Japan, China and Europe.
So I started to focus on those ancient
techniques that have that universality’. In
addition, he explained that he ‘decided
to use stone to make this building and
when I thought about the context of the
Serpentine site I decided on slate. This
decision was also made because it is
a readily available British material’. The
material in the stone roof, Cumbrian slate,
which is widely used in the UK, and the most
basic method of construction is layered
over. His pursuit of universality conjures a
sense of the ‘as found’ conceived by Alison
and Peter Smithson, but Ishigami seeks
universal materials to extend the everyday
environment of park landscapes, and not to
enact new discoveries or values in everyday
life. This reconfirms that his focus was on
the landscape created by architecture. His
resolute attitude resonates with his words
that ‘I want to make buildings look old as if
they had already been’.
It is less convincing to claim that architecture
has turned into a kind of scenic design by
pursuing universality. Instead, we need topay attention to scenery in that it is always a
relationship with the surroundings. Ishigami
and his team have proved that they are
capable of converting the surroundings.
A 3mm-thick-table featured in Kirin Art
Project (2005) generates a sensation of
weightlessness by its overwhelming 9m
length, and a structure of 0.9mm carbon
fiber at the Venice Biennale, architecture
as air (2010) left people visually dazed
when roaming between the object and the
background. What kind of sensibility did he
want to twist in his Hyde Park project?
The stone-cladding ‘possesses the weighty
presence of slate roofs observed around
the world, and simultaneously appears so
light that it could blow away in the breeze.
The cluster of scattered rock levitates, like a
billowing piece of fabric’.▼^2 Ishigami added,
‘it can make a stronger surface because
it is made of small-sized stones’, brushing
off of the outmoded concept that ‘stone is
heavy’. Layers of thin, black stones, as the
architect put it, stimulate our senses as they
surrounds us with shimmering lightness.
Shedding new light on the concept of
weight, he envisions that the ‘expanse of
the scenery’▼^3 , completed by the atypical
pavilion, will refresh the park’s atmosphere.
It sometimes becomes ‘a blackbird’▼^4 flying
in the sky as well as a cave that opens out of
the earth. It reshapes the park by belonging
with varied perspectives.
The moment we look at the pavilion as a part
of the scenery, his magic twists our senses
once again. It restores our basic senses,
allowing us to realise that it is no longer an
urban space while transitioning from city to
park and park to natural scenery. The pile
of stones, which seems to have taken off
from mother earth, reveals itself as if it has
always been there. If his past works are like
acupuncture, delving into the depths with
extreme precision, the pile of stones is a
work of psychotherapy that extends infinitely
to the surroundings. For even a huge park is
reinvented as a new environment for itself,