Hyde and chic

摘要

Zaha Hadid has now created three pavilions for the Serpentine Gallery: two temporaries for the annual summer event programme (including the first one in 2000), and the permanent space recently opened on another Kensington Gardens site a few minutes' walk away. This creates an additional venue for the Serpentine, comprising the Magazine, an 1805 brick marvel produced for gunpowder storage, and a new linked pavilion designed in inimitable Zaha fashion. What a delightful commission this was: a parallel universe with the same essential elements as the original (historic building, contemporary addition), offering the possibility of double exhibitions, or compare-and-contrast, or just difference, plus a welcome bar/restaurant/social space in the fabric-roof addition.