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Spanish firm SelgasCano to design 15th Serpentine Pavilion in London

Spanish firm SelgasCano to design 15th Serpentine Pavilion in London

The Serpentine Galleries has announced that Spanish architecture firm SelgasCano has been selected to design its 15th Serpentine Pavilion in London‘s Kensington Gardens. While the pavilion plan won’t be unveiled until February, here’s what we know about the firm that won the coveted commission.

“SelgasCano’s work is characterised by a use of synthetic materials and new technologies, often rarely applied to architecture,” the Serpentine said in a statement. “Taking inspiration from Luis Barragan and Richard Rogers, the architects use distinctive colours and references to nature throughout their designs.”

SelgasCano was founded in Madrid in 1998 by José Selgas and Lucía Cano and has worked primarily in its home country. The firm teaches a class called “Nature and Climatology” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and participated in the 2010 Venice Biennale.

“This is an amazing and unique opportunity to work in a Royal Garden in the centre of London,” SelgasCano said in a statement. “Both aspects, ‘Garden’ and ‘London’, are very important for us in the development of this project. We are in the middle of a garden, a ‘Royal’ garden indeed, once divided in two and separated by a Serpentine. That garden clings in the middle of London. Garden and London (which best defines London?) will be the elements to show and develop in the Pavilion. For that we are going to use only one material as a canvas for both: the Transparency. That ‘material’ has to be explored in all its structural possibilities, avoiding any other secondary material that supports it, and the most advanced technologies will be needed to be employed to accomplish that transparency. A good definition for the pavilion can be taken from J. M. Barrie: it aims to be as a ‘Betwixt-and-Between’.”

Previous pavilion designers include Frank GehryHerzog & de Meuron and Ai WeiweiRem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond, Daniel Libeskind, and Zaha Hadid. Check out some of SelgasCano’s work  in the gallery below.

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