SelgasCano Selected for 2015 Serpentine Pavilion

SelgasCano is the first firm from Spain asked to design the temporary Pavilion on the Serpentine’s lawn in London’s Kensington Gardens. Their design will be revealed in February 2015, with the opening following most likely, as in previous years, in June.

Their commission comes one year after Chilean architect Smiljan Radić, who described his pavilion as "a fragile shell suspended on large quarry stones." The choices of both Radić and SelgasCano, and to a lesser degree 2013's Sou Fujimoto, signal a refreshing shift away from the already established names of previous years: Herzog & de Meuron with Ai Weiwei (2012), Peter Zumthor (2011), Jean Nouvel (2010), Frank Gehry (2008), Rem Koolhaas (2006), and so on.

If SelgasCano's previous work, such as the partially submerged office for their own studio in Madrid, is any indication, the pavilion will hide itself within Kensington Gardens. They told the Guardian on the occasion of the Serpentine Pavilion commission, "We think nature should take precedence over architecture. We try to hide the presence of our architecture as much as possible."