Chilean architect Smiljan Radić’s shell-shaped Serpentine Pavilion has been relocated from Hyde Park to the gardens of Hauser & Wirth Somerset in Bruton. Just under three hours from London, the new site positions the translucent fiberglass structure in short proximity to a main gallery complex designed by Paris-based Argentine architect Luis Laplace and within an lush garden designed by Dutch landscape architect Piet Oudolf.
“I think that I've been very lucky, because I always thought of the pavilion as a folly in the middle of a park, as a construction dislocated in the midst of nature, and this is why the new site for the pavilion in Somerset is a success,” says Radić. “It has been placed at the end of a walk through the beautiful garden by Piet Oudolf, and this position will give visitors a certain distance, a quieter time to examine it, and it will have a different kind of mystery than it had in the middle of London.”
News via Architectural Digest