Serpentine is delighted to announce that Lebanese-born, Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmeh, has been selected to conceive the 22nd Pavilion. Ghotmeh’s Pavilion will be unveiled at Serpentine South in June 2023 with Goldman Sachs supporting the annual project for the 9th consecutive year.
This pioneering and prestigious commission, which began in 2000 with Dame Zaha Hadid, has presented the first completed UK structures by some of the biggest names and emerging talents in international architecture. The Pavilion has evolved over the years as a participatory public and artistic platform for the Serpentine’s experimental, interdisciplinary, community and family programmes.
Ghotmeh leads her practice Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture in Paris, France, where she develops projects at the crossroads of architecture, art and design, on a global scale. Considerate of social conditions, environments and materials, her practice takes an in-depth 360° approach to its projects including thorough research on location history, typology of the place, materials, resources, and users’ habits.
The 22nd Pavilion will continue this ongoing practice of ‘Archaeology of the future’, by exploring notions of memory, space and landscape through the architect’s own personal methodology. Next year’s Pavilion will be titled À table, the French call to sit down together at a table and will allude to a sense of unity with the form of its structure and an organic design of a table as well as seating formation inviting human interactions.
Inspired by nature and echoing the grounds and canopies of the trees and its surroundings, the idea of togetherness and community will take centre stage in Ghotmeh’s structural architecture. Lina Ghotmeh, Architect said: “À table is an invitation to dwell together, in the same space and around the same table. It is an encouragement to enter into a dialogue, to convene and to think about how we could reinstate and re-establish our relationship to nature and the Earth.”
Placing nature, the organic and sustainability at its core, Ghotmeh’s Pavilion will be designed to minimise its carbon footprint and environmental impact, in line with Serpentine’s sustainability policy. The predominantly timber structure will be light-weight and fully demountable, with a focus on sustainably sourced materials and the reusability of the structure after its time installed at Serpentine.
Throughout the Summer, the Serpentine Pavilion 2023 will become a platform for Serpentine’s programme which will feature Park Nights, the interdisciplinary platform for live encounters in music, poetry, spoken words, and dance, running alongside Serpentine’s Education and Civic activations. The Pavilion is supported by Goldman Sachs with additional support by Saint-Gobain.
This year’s Pavilion selection was made by Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist, CEO Bettina Korek, Director of Construction and Special Projects Julie Burnell, Director of Curatorial Affairs and Public Practice Yesomi Umolu, and Curator at Large Natalia Grabowska together with advisors Sir David Adjaye OM OBE and David Glover. Source and images Courtesy of Serpentine Galleries.