A weekly series to share my art discovery with work that caught my eye... Today is about the new Serpentine Pavilion 2018 and the architect behind this design, Frida Escobedo, the 18th and youngest architect to accept the Serpentine Gallery (London) challenge.
The Serpentine Galleries are contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens (London), 2 spaces linked by a bridge over the Serpentine Lake. Every year since 2000, the gallery organizes its pavilion for the summer, the Mexican architect, Frida Escobedo, is the second woman in charge of the project after Zaha Hadid with the pioneering pavilion.
Serpentine Pavilion by Zaha Hadid in 2000
WHO
Born in Mexico City in 1979, Frida Escobedo began her architect carreer in 2004 with the award of the Scholarship for Young Creators by the National Fund for Arts and Culture (FONCA), an UNESCO initiative. One of her first buildings recognized internationally was La Tallera Siqueiros cultural centre in Cuernavaca (Mexico), turning the workshop of the Mexican artist David Alfaro Siqueiros in museum.
David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974) was a Mexican realist painter, known for his large murals and his collaboration with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco.
Untitled, oil on canvas, David Alfaro Siqueiros
In 2006, she founded her practice in Mexico City. In 2013, Frida Escobedo was finalist at the the Architecture programme at the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative for one-year long mentorship with japanese architect Kazuyo Sejima. In 2014, she was selected as a finalist for the Designs of the Year at the Design Museum in London. She likes to work on residual or forgotten urban spaces to revive these neighborhoods or buildings. She defines herself as "pata de perro", dog's paw, Mexican expression refers to people who love to walk the streets up and down. I love this expression, I'm one pata de perro for graffiti.
Bocachica hotel (Acapulco, Mexico)
One another project was in 2017 the temporary installation for the Chicago Architecture Biennial with the Randolph Square. She created moveable modules in order to allow lounging and gathering.
Randolph Square
WHAT
For the Serpentine Pavilion 2018, Frida Escobedo plays with light, water, geometry and specifically with the Prime Meridian line at London’s Royal Observatory in Greenwich. The Pavilion is an enclosed courtyard with walls aligned with the Serpentine Gallery with an axis refering to the Prime Meridian (the marker of time and geographical distance established in 1851).
For the walls, the architect used a dark celosia, traditional breeze wall common to Mexican architecture (she loves to use this type of walls as you can see Bohachica Hotel, Tallera Sisqueiro Centre...). She installed also mirrored panels on the roof with a triangular pool. All this elements play with light in a game of reflection and refraction, emphasise the movement of light and shadow inside the Pavilion.
"I think one needs to plan for change. Make everything more flexible in every way, so that the building becomes more like a palm tree and less like a completely rigid structure, because that’s the one that will fall down. Rigid things collapse. The rest can move, yes, it transforms, it may lose sections, but its spirit will remain." - Frida Escobedo, interview in The Fabulist.
Sources
Frida Escobedo
Serpentine Gallery
Serpentine Pavilion 2018
Interview in 2013 about her earlier projects, Design Boom
Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative
Chicago Architecture Biennial
On Wiki :
Old Post Eye of Art
Eye of Art #11 Ayesha Sultana
Eye of Art #10 Revue 391
Eye of Art #9 Balkrishna Doshi
Bonus Video
Frida Escobedo about the Serpentine Pavilion