GAD Editorial · Published · · English study · Chinese summary · Study dated 2026-10-04
A building can appear light without concealing its construction. It can also seem to float while placing conspicuously heavy supports in view. Sou Fujimoto’s 2013 Serpentine Pavilion and Smiljan Radić’s 2014 commission offer two ways to investigate that distinction. Both were temporary installations in London’s Kensington Gardens. Comparing their material relationships is more useful than treating their unusual outlines as interchangeable examples of experimental form.
A grid that becomes several architectural elements
Serpentine records Fujimoto’s pavilion as a lattice of slender white steel poles, with stepped areas for sitting and a café within a multipurpose social setting. The commissioning institution describes a space intended to maintain a close relationship with the surrounding park. Serpentine’s 2013 record
The M+ collection account adds an important construction distinction. Its description identifies a welded three-dimensional steel grid, with transparent polycarbonate discs and glass squares inserted to provide surfaces and protection. The open-looking frame therefore cannot by itself explain every place a visitor could sit or shelter. The infill matters. M+ model record
Our reading is that repetition makes the boundary difficult to locate. A line seen near the eye belongs to the same visual family as one overhead or beyond another person. Yet this visual continuity contains different physical tasks. Studying the pavilion requires separating the grid as an organising idea from the specific surfaces that support occupation.
A shell placed against rough stone
Radić’s pavilion used a translucent fibreglass shell supported on large quarry stones. The gallery’s account describes an interior arranged around an open central patio, with timber decking and a café. It also records AECOM’s engineering and technical design contribution. Serpentine’s 2014 record
Here, the contrast between materials does much of the visual work. The stones make support conspicuous, while the shell gives the occupied volume a continuous outline. The patio interrupts that outline from within. Rather than read the object only as a ring resting on rocks, examine where a person encounters the shell, the open centre and the floor as different boundaries.
The comparison is not a contest between honesty and illusion. Both designs use construction to produce a particular way of seeing. Fujimoto distributes a fine repeated element through space; Radić sets a continuous enclosing surface against concentrated supports. Apparent delicacy is an architectural effect, not a quantified statement about material efficiency, structural capacity or environmental impact.
Draw the support separately from the appearance
A productive desk exercise begins with two diagrams for each pavilion. In the first, identify the elements visible to an arriving visitor. In the second, trace only documented support relationships and mark any connections the sources do not explain. Do not fill missing structural information with a plausible sketch. An unknown joint should remain an explicit question.
Add the surfaces people could occupy and the openings through which they could see the park. This helps distinguish transparency from physical access, and openness from weather protection. A photograph can suggest all three without proving that they coincide at a particular location.
The 2013 and 2014 GAD records describe the original temporary commissions. Their value as precedents lies in how a small building can make support, enclosure and occupation newly perceptible, while leaving technical judgement dependent on the appropriate drawings and evidence.