Research

Creator: Frank Gehry, (his son Samuel Gehry). Famous of abnormal frame structure, deconstructivism, avoid architecture regular form Form pursuit function, fracture geometric, epidermis, tension. Born in Toronto, Canada, he studied at University of Southern California and Harvard. He designed Guggenheim Museum, which is felt by many to be one of the most significant buildings of the late 20th century. He also designed an extension of the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Concept: The 2008 Serpentine Summer Pavilion was a timber structure “which acted as an urban street connecting the park with the permanent gallery building.” His inspiration came from timber structures, garden parties, a flock of butterflies and a military catapult created by Leonardo da Vinci. The structure is 16m high, consists of large timber planks, hanging glass and beams with an inner core of structural steel. Hybrid of street and amphitheater.
Glass canopies hanging inside the structure provided shade and protected visitors from the rain. It was intended as a place for live performances with a capacity of about 275 spectators.” Gehry explains: “The interplay between the exoskeleton of timber planks and the multiple glazed roof surfaces invokes imagery of striped park tent structures and catapults, capturing the visual energy of a place created from the juxta-position of random elements.”

Background: Wood material has echoes that concern Gehry’s childhood and his first experience of architecture. In 2008 Gehry’s interview, he said: “It’s wood aesthetic, it comes from being Canadian, perhaps, because living in a very cold climates like Ontario, where it can snow for 10 months of the year, there is a feeling of the heart and the warmth of wood.” And Gehry influenced by Finland architecture Aalto a lot, they resonated from the beginning, since Gehry attend his lecture in U of T 1946. Music, especially classic music, which was the priority elements of the pavilion. From first designs to the opening night concert, the project has taken only six months, which requires quick thinking and experimentation.

Structure strategies: Anchored by four massive steel columns, the Pavilion was composed of large timber planks and a complex network of overlapping glass planes that created a dramatic, multi-dimensional space. The structure’s expansive interior is classic Gehry: muscular but friendly.
Seen from the angle of the main axis of the Serpentine Gallery, the Gehry Pavilion takes on the air of a triumphal, asymmetric arch. Despite its apparently free and expressive forms, the pavilion creates an excellent space for concerts and conferences directly in front of the gallery. With its high and open roof, the structure is less enclosed and protective than many of its predecessors. Also, the suspended planes forming the roof of the pavilion hang high above the performance and seating space, which lead to an unprecedented openness that might expose audience to a passing shower. a wide aisle — Gehry calls it a street — is flanked by stadium seating for the coffee kiosk next door and for lectures, films and concerts.

Material function: Silkscreened patterns mark glass barriers while an exploded grid hangs between earth and sky – a tour de force in formal, artistic terms, and a joyous celebration of the ambitious summer program of the serpentine. Secondary, with its visible heavy wooden beams hanging in the air at precarious angles, the pavilion is the complete opposite of the anchored brick structure of the serpentine. At befits a temporary pavilion, the design exemplifies the famous definition of architecture as frozen music.

Viewer experience: Depending on the angle from which it is seen, the structure sometimes looks like a jumble of wood and glass. Indeed, it changes completely in appearance depending on the position of the viewer. But this building, more than the others, also lives up to the description of the pavilion by Julia Peyton-Jones, the gallery’s director, as “a real town square.”

Construction process: First, the four columns, then the glass planes structure, fix them on the columns, more platform, structure, then the wood flor, chairs, stairs, glass, lighting.