Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2011

Serpentine Gallery

Pavilion designed by: Peter Zumthor

(Kensington Gardens)

Another reason for strolling through Kensington Gardens this summer is this small unassuming black building. This concept is the 11th pavilion that has been commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery.

Here the Swiss Architect Peter Zumthor, who is known for putting gardens back into the center of buildings, has collaborated with the Dutch Garden designer Piet Oudolf.

'A garden is the most intimate landscape ensemble I know of. It is close to us. There we cultivate the plants we need. A garden requires care and protection. And so we encircle it, we defend it and fend for it. We give it shelter. The garden turns into a place.

Enclosed gardens fascinate me. A forerunner of this fascination is my love of the fenced vegetable gardens on farms in the Alps, where farmers’ wives often planted flowers as well. I love the image of these small rectangles cut out of vast alpine meadows, the fence keeping the animals out. There is something else that strikes me in this image of a garden fenced off within the larger landscape around it: something small has found sanctuary within something big.

The hortus conclusus that I dream of is enclosed all around and open to the sky. Every time I imagine a garden in an architectural setting, it turns into a magical place. I think of gardens that I have seen, that I believe I have seen, that I long to see, surrounded by simple walls, columns, arcades or the façades of buildings – sheltered places of great intimacy where I want to stay for a long time.'

Peter Zumthor

Get a coffee at the small coffee stand behind the building, bring a book and breathe out!

With Love Kristin