Speaking about the design for this years Serpentine Pavilion Peter Zumthor said ‘the concept for this year’s Pavilion is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time.’ The pavilion ‘aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again - maybe not.’
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Good article from Independent summing up Zumthor's approach here. 'Zumthor is Mr Atmosphere, the unchallenged master in creating spaces of sensual, pregnant stillness: the vibe is utterly anti-free market, anti-bling. He is a modernist, but his obsessions with memory, shifts of ambience, and meticulously crafted surfaces and details are timeless. Zumthor's Kolumba Museum in Cologne, for example, lacks only the overlapping chants of plainsong to make it a monastery of art.' Jay Merrick, Independent.
