2025 Serpentine Pavilion to be designed by Marina Tabassum
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The 2025 Serpentine Pavilion can be designed by Marina Tabassum, it has simply been revealed. The Bangladeshi architect and her Dhaka-based agency, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA), have labored on a proposal for a construction titled A Capsule in Time, reflecting on the themes of temporality, permanence and legacy in structure. The annual Serpentine Gallery, constructed exterior Serpentine South, is a staple (and extremely coveted) fee within the London calendar, usually seen as marking the kick-off of the summer time season.
Tabassum has turn out to be identified internationally for her crisp, textured and extremely sustainably pushed structure. Her Khudi Bari design (a modular dwelling prototype whose title means ‘little home’) was launched on the Vitra Campus in Europe final summer time and is a good instance of her work. It’s a gentle, simply demountable and movable construction, designed as a response to Bangladesh’s recurrent and frequent flooding disasters, a results of local weather change. Her Serpentine Pavilion can be one other uncommon instance of her work exterior her dwelling nation. We caught up with the architect at her Dhaka workplace to debate her design.
Marina Tabassum on the 2025 Serpentine Pavilion
(Picture credit score: Marina Tabassum Architects)
W*: Congratulations! Please inform us how the fee happened. When did you discover out you received it?
Marina Tabassum: The fee is an invited competitors to some extent, amongst architects who’ve by no means in-built London earlier than. I used to be invited to ship a proposal in 2017. It did not work out that point, however in 2023, the Serpentine got here again asking if I might nonetheless have an interest. I acquired an e mail from Hans [Ulrich Obrist, the gallery’s artistic director] someday in early October that they selected my proposal to be constructed this 12 months. It was very thrilling. It additionally got here at a time of political unrest and rebellion in Bangladesh [refering to the country’s student uprising in July 2024], resulting in the autumn of a authorities, so it was fairly a tough time for us. Lots of people misplaced their lives. It was a troubled time, and our design being chosen was a breath of recent air for us and one thing to stay up for in 2025.
W*: What does this fee signify for you?
MT: It is an fascinating fee. It stays there for a really quick time. It is a celebration of the London Summer time. I’ve visited a number of of the Serpentine Pavilions earlier than. Architects in all the world at all times have a look at it, we at all times marvel who’s doing the subsequent one and what are they developing with as their thought. It’s short-lived and it’s light-hearted, however on the identical time, you’ll be able to convey up all completely different sorts of agendas that concern our time. We will specific concepts.
W*: What’s on the core of your thought for this 12 months?
MT: My curiosity was within the notion of time. The design displays a type of time capsule that can be there for 5 months. Folks can be utilizing it in numerous methods; Serpentine occasions will occur, individuals will come from all around the world to go to it, and there are additionally the common Kensington Backyard customers. After which, impulsively, by October, it is gone. After which we await the subsequent one. So there may be this temporality, however the design retains on residing within the digital realm. On the identical time, structure has at all times been used as a device to bridge generations and civilizations. It has been used as a celebration of energy. It defies the entire notion of time. In a method, it’s fairly much like the best way our homes [in Bangladesh] are within the delta. The homes transfer, and so they go away, however the story of the place a home was, and the way the household used to make use of it, turns into a type of oral historical past, handed on from technology to technology.
Marina Tabassum’s prototype mannequin dwelling Khudi Bari on the Vitra Campus
(Picture credit score: Julien Lanoo)
W*: Inform us about your pavilion’s afterlife.
MT: You need to take into consideration the afterlife and its sustainability. You are utilizing some huge cash, materials, and energy. For me, my preliminary thought was that it may turn out to be a library someplace, it could possibly be in a faculty. It could possibly be donated someplace. Its type is open because it receives individuals within the park in the course of the summer time; however as soon as it turns into a library, it is going to be rather more closed and turn out to be one singular type.
W*: What’s it product of?
MT: It is made out of wooden. It’s a wood construction, and that is fairly fascinating and thrilling as that is my first ever constructing in wooden. We went for glulam wooden as it’s obtainable and might be sourced on this a part of the world and it means the construction may also transfer. The pavilion has two arched areas and two half domes. In between, we now have these polycarb panels to create a really translucent gentle inside. I at all times like working with gentle. My tasks, particularly the mosques, and different tasks, play loads with this ingredient. So, in London’s lovely sunny days, the pavilion will turn out to be a vibrant, cheerful area. I additionally wished to attach the design to Bangladesh. We’ve got these material made buildings referred to as shamianas. These are like pavilions in type, and very often used for bigger gatherings, like weddings, different non secular events or every other actions. They signify a coming collectively in the neighborhood.
W*: What do you hope the customer may take away from the pavilion after a go to?
MT: It is a area the place individuals come collectively, and you realize what, within the first quarter of our century we now have seen many wars, one after one other. It is a area the place variety might be celebrated, and we will have talks and discussions. A platform the place we will reconcile or speak about our variations and turn out to be one human being.
(Picture credit score: Asif Salman)
2025 Serpentine Pavilion: the fundamentals
The Serpentine Pavilion has been commissioned yearly by the Serpentine Gallery since 2000, with Zaha Hadid kicking off the collection with the primary momentary construction in central London’s Kensington Gardens, proper exterior the landmark artwork area’s authentic essential dwelling. The mission is at all times awarded to an architect who has by no means constructed a everlasting construction within the capital earlier than and has, over time, turn out to be a who-is-who of up to date structure. Current contributors have included Lina Ghotmeh, Minsuk Cho, Sumayya Vally, Frida Escobedo and Francis Kere.
The 2025 Serpentine Pavilion will launch to the general public on the sixth of June and can stay on website till the 26 October 2025. The venue is free to go to and can turn out to be the bottom for the Serpentine Gallery’s experimental, interdisciplinary programme for talks and different occasions, together with schooling and group actions. This consists of Park Nights, a platform for reside encounters all through the fields of music, dance, philosophy, expertise and extra.
The Pavillion is supported by Goldman Sachs, and is made doable via a collaboration with engineers Aecom and producers Stage One.
