Postcards from The Summer Pavilion 2021, The Serpentine Gallery

A short post from me today with some picture postcards of the weekend gone in London. I love the Summer Pavilion at the Serpentine, and try to visit the new one each year. Having not made last years, for obvious reasons, I was keen to tag it on to our family trip to the Natural History Museum this weekend, and it didn’t disappoint. It’s a real stunner of a space, in fact my six year old didn’t want to leave it! Designed by Sumayya Vally of Johannesburg based architect practice Counterspace, this years space is the youngest commissioned designer for the Summer Pavilion in its twenty years.

Inspired by the themes of meeting, connection, belonging and diaspora amongst London’s diverse cross-cultural communities, the pavilion includes architectural abstractions from past and present meeting spaces for London’s diverse communities. The work is rendered in micro plaster on a steel and cork base and makes reference to The Mangrove in Notting Hill, the Fazl Mosque in Wandsworth, and The Four Aces club on Dalston Lane amongst others. It’s a truly stunning space. It’s free to visit until September, and with Covid guidelines in place it remains quiet enough to enjoy the space – a space where restrictions add to the enjoyment of art. Having moaned for at least a decade about how packed gallery spaces can be to the detriment of enjoyment, this is one aspect of Covid measurements I hope becomes habit.