Exhibition Serpentine Pavilion 2017
Designed by Francis Kéré

Serpentine Pavilion 2017, Designed by Francis Kéré, Design Render, Exterior © Kéré Architecture

Fri, 23.06.2017 -
Sun, 08.10.2017

Serpentine Gallery

We are proud to be supporting the Serpentine Pavilion 2017, designed by Berlin-based Diébédo Francis Kéré. The award-winning architect from Burkino Faso has designed a bold, innovative structure that brings his characteristic sense of light and life to London.

Inspired by the tree that serves as a central meeting point for life in his home town of Gando, Francis Kéré has designed a responsive Pavilion that seeks to connect its visitors to nature – and each other. An expansive roof, supported by a central steel framework, mimics a tree’s canopy, allowing air to circulate freely while offering shelter against London rain and summer heat.

 
  • Gando Primary School; Gando, Burkina Faso, 2001 © Simeon Duchoud
  • Gando Primary School; Gando, Burkina Faso, 2001 © Enrico Cano
  • Gando Primary School Extension; Gando, Burkina Faso, 2008 © Erik Jan Ouwerkerk
  • Camper Pop-up Shop at Vitra; Weil am Rhein, Germany, 2015 © Vitra. Photography by Eduardo Perez
  • Serpentine Pavilion 2017, Designed by Francis Kéré, Design Render, Exterior ©Kéré Architecture
  • Serpentine Pavilion 2017, Designed by Francis Kéré, Design Render, Interior © Kéré Architecture
  • National Park of Mali; Bamako, Mali, 2010 © Kéré Architecture
Kéré is the seventeenth architect to accept the Serpentine Galleries’ invitation to design a temporary Pavilion in its grounds. Since its launch in 2000, this annual commission of an international architect to build his or her first structure in London at the time of invitation has become one of the most anticipated events in the global cultural calendar and a leading visitor attraction during London’s summer season. Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO Yana Peel made their selection of the architect, with advisors David Adjaye and Richard Rogers.

 
Francis Kéré Francis Kéré © Erik Jan Ouwerkerk Diébédo Francis Kéré is the principal architect at Kéré Architecture based in Berlin, founded in 2005. Kéré was born in 1965 in Gando, Burkina Faso, west Africa and trained at the Technical University of Berlin. Kéré Architecture has been recognised nationally and internationally with awards including the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (2004) for his first building, a primary school in Gando, Burkina Faso; LOCUS Global Award for Sustainable Architecture (2009); Global Holcim Award Gold (2011 and 2012); Green Planet Architects Award (2013); Schelling Architecture Foundation Award (2014) and the Kenneth Hudson Award – European Museum of the Year (2015).

Kéré’s work has recently been the subject of solo exhibitions: Radically Simple at the Architecture Museum in Munich (2016) and The Architecture of Francis Kéré: Building for Community, Philadelphia Museum of Art (2016). His work has also been selected for group exhibitions Small Scale, Big Change: New Architectures of Social Engagement, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010) and Sensing Spaces, Royal Academy, London (2014).

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