The Serpentine Pavilion turns to brick for its 25th year

This summer’s Serpentine Pavilion is built like an English garden wall. Its south side bends back and forth in a single line of clay brick, the way the crinkle-crankle walls of Suffolk do. The architects are Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo of LANZA atelier in Mexico City, and they named the pavilion after the wall: a serpentine.

A crinkle-crankle wall in brick

The pavilion opened on the lawn beside Serpentine South in Kensington Gardens on 6 June. It is the 25th since Zaha Hadid built the first in 2000, and it is free to walk into.

A wall of alternating curves can stand one brick wide, because each curve braces the next. The type began in ancient Egypt and came to England with Dutch engineers. It caught on while Britain taxed bricks, until 1850, because a curved wall needs fewer bricks than a straight one.

A second wall to the north bends around the canopy of the nearby trees. Between the two, a translucent roof rests on brick columns meant to read as a grove, spaced so that the wall turns from solid to open. The pavilion measures about 19 by 18 metres and rises to 4.15 metres.

Brick also answers the building next door. Serpentine South was built as a tea pavilion in 1933 and 1934, and LANZA chose the material to talk to its brick façade and to the English walled garden.

None of the walls is laid in mortar. A slender steel frame runs inside each one, so the pavilion can be taken down and rebuilt on a new site with little damage to the bricks. Its concrete pad foundations are made to be lifted and used again, and the lawn goes back to grass.

LANZA designed the chairs and stools too, in sapele hardwood made locally. A winding bench carries the design out onto the lawn. The architects say there is no fixed place to sit, and the furniture can be moved into new arrangements.

Park Nights and summer receptions

From July the pavilion is the stage for Park Nights, the Serpentine’s evenings of new live work by artists. Curators also lead free afternoon tours through the summer.

Each pavilion comes with a weatherproof cover, lighting, power and a built-in bar, and the Serpentine hires it out as its summer reception space. Its capacity changes with every design.

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 stands beside Serpentine South from 6 June to 25 October 2026. Entry is free.

Serpentine South, Kensington Gardens, London.