A summer of red brick
Every year London builds a new pavilion in Hyde Park. This year’s design draws on an old English garden wall to create the 25th edition of one of the city’s most beautiful architectural traditions.
Some buildings are meant to last forever. Others fascinate precisely because they don’t. The Serpentine Pavilion belongs to the second category. Every summer a new, temporary structure rises in Kensington Gardens; every autumn it vanishes again. This year’s edition is made of red brick and tells a surprisingly ancient story. Its origins lie not in an architect’s studio, but in an English garden.
- The Serpentine Pavilion 2026 is titled “a serpentine” and comes from LANZA atelier
- It reimagines the English crinkle-crankle wall, a single-brick-thick serpentine wall
- First Serpentine Pavilion built entirely of brick, assembled without mortar and fully demountable
- 2026 marks the 25th edition of this annual architectural commission
A tradition reborn every summer
Since 2000 the Serpentine Gallery has invited a different architecture studio each summer to build a temporary pavilion in Kensington Gardens. The first was Zaha Hadid. A key rule: the commission goes to international architects who have never built in the UK. The pavilion is often their first realised work in England. Over the years the park has quietly become an open-air gallery of contemporary architecture, each season adding a new design. This year’s structure follows Marina Tabassum’s wooden and polycarbonate pavilion of 2025. Every studio brings its own emphasis, material, form, or both, so the gardens slowly become an ever-changing archive of the moment’s architectural thinking.
This year’s choice fell to LANZA atelier, a Mexico City studio founded in 2015 by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo. Their pavilion opened to the public on 6 June and will stand until October. The selection was made by a curatorial team led by Serpentine’s directors and Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist, advised by Sou Fujimoto, who designed the pavilion several years ago himself.
The old wall, rethought
The concept, titled “a serpentine,” takes its cue from the English crinkle-crankle garden wall. This is a single-brick-thick serpentine wall whose stability comes solely from its wave-like curve; a straight wall this thin would topple, but the undulation keeps it upright. It even uses fewer bricks than a straight wall, a perfect example of how form and structure can work together.
LANZA atelier scales this modest garden motif into an entire pavilion. It is the first Serpentine Pavilion ever built entirely of brick, assembled without mortar and stabilised with steel plates so it can be dismantled at season’s end. The design thus merges an ancient building principle with the modern idea that architecture can disappear without trace. The absence of mortar is not a gimmick but an idea: a structure you can take apart leaves no ruin and no rubble. Sustainability comes from the construction itself, not from a green label.
How the Space Feels
The design divides the space into two distinct zones. There is a sheltered, public interior area with a translucent roof that follows the curve of the walls, allowing light and air to flow through. And there is an open exterior space featuring a curved brick seating bench integrated into the rear wall curve, which can also serve as a small stage. The transition between inside and outside is seamless. One steps from the filtered light under the roof into the open greenery of the park without ever crossing a true threshold. This gentle shift is typical of fine garden architecture, which never wants to be entirely house nor entirely open space.
The pavilion combines a very ancient building principle with the modern idea that architecture should be able to vanish without a trace.
From a distance, it sounds like a simple structure. That’s precisely its charm. Red brick walls, guided by steel plates, create an almost delicate brick garden within, through whose columns wind and daylight pass. Instead of fixed functions, the architects rely on movable furniture so visitors can arrange the space themselves. The hope is that unplanned uses will emerge, children circling a column or someone turning the bench into a stage. Such openness is rare. Most public spaces dictate exactly what users should do. Here, it’s the opposite: the space waits to see what people will make of it.
When a Pavilion Becomes an Event
One might ask why a temporary park structure attracts so much attention. The answer lies in the combination of freedom and stage. Because the pavilion stands for only one summer, the architects are free to experiment without worrying about permanence, office space, or returns. The building is a pure architectural manifesto set in one of London’s most visited locations. Few other institutions give a single design such prominence. For a young studio, it’s a rare chance to showcase their signature style before an international audience.
Admission is free. Around it, a full program unfolds. The Park Nights include evening events inside the pavilion. This year’s edition also features a symposium on Zaha Hadid, who designed the very first pavilion. A circle closes: the structure that launched the tradition a quarter-century ago is once again the subject during the 25th edition.
A Structure That Knowingly Disappears
Perhaps the loveliest thing about this tradition is that it celebrates the ephemeral. We’re used to architecture that seeks to endure, that sets monuments and stakes a claim to eternity. The Serpentine Pavilion does the opposite. It is built, lives for one summer, and is then dismantled. What remains is a memory and a photograph.
That’s what makes a visit so special. If you want to see this year’s pavilion, you have a narrow window. After that, this exact building will never exist again. It’s a rare form of luxury in architecture, which otherwise prizes permanence. Here, the moment counts, the light through the translucent roof, the warm hue of the bricks, the single summer in which this place exists. Anyone who has strolled through the Kensington Gardens on a warm evening already senses how perfectly this red-brick structure nestles into the park’s greenery. It doesn’t impose. It invites you to pause for a moment.
Quick Clarification
▸What is the Serpentine Pavilion?
It is a temporary architectural pavilion commissioned by the Serpentine Gallery every summer since 2000 in London’s Kensington Gardens. Each year, a different firm designs the structure, which stands for only one season before being dismantled.
▸What is a crinkle-crankle wall?
This is a traditional English garden wall built in a wavy line. The serpentine shape makes it stable even though it is only one brick wide. It actually uses fewer bricks than a straight wall of the same length.
▸Is there an admission fee?
No. Entry to the pavilion in Kensington Gardens is free of charge. Around it, a summer programme of evening events called Park Nights takes place, for which separate rules may apply.
Image credits: cover image Boys In Bristol SmokZ; article images Noemí Jiménez and Mingyang LIU (Pexels).
Sources and further reading: Serpentine Galleries, ArchDaily and Dezeen.
