Twenty-five years after Zaha Hadid designed the first-ever summer pavilion outside London’s Serpentine Gallery, the beloved architectural commission returns with a striking new structure by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum. To mark the bumper milestone, Tabassum has created an indoor-outdoor ‘capsule’ pavilion — and has delivered, arguably, one of the most successful iterations in the programme’s history.

Constructed from translucent steel-framed polycarbonate panels attached to an arched timber frame, ‘A Capsule in Time’ pays homage to South Asian ‘shamiyana’ tents, often used at Bengali wedding celebrations.

‘The Serpentine Pavilion celebrates the London summer — a time to be outdoors, connecting with friends and family in Kensington Gardens. We want to celebrate the tradition of park going,’ said Tabassum. ‘On a sunny day, the play of filtered daylight through the translucent façade draws on the memory of being under a Shamiyana at a Bengali wedding. Built from a bamboo structure wrapped with colourfully decorated cloth, Shamiyanas can convene hundreds of guests on any occasion.’

Tinted plastic panels filter the light like stained glass, rising nearly 5 metres overhead. Built-in bookshelves double as seating. And the structure was built to move — with the help of an underground hydraulic machine, the central arch shifts just over a metre to close the space to create a full, weather-resistant canopy.

‘The Serpentine Pavilion offers a place where people of diverse backgrounds, ages and cultures can come together under one roof and call for action, facilitating dialogues that expand our boundaries of tolerance and respect,’ says Tabassum.

The temporary pavilion will remain in front of the Kensington Gardens gallery until October, at which time it will be used as a library.

See all our coverage of previous editions of the Serpentine Pavilion.

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