The 22nd Serpentine Pavilion design, exhibited in Kensington Gardens in June 2023, will be designed by Lebanese-born Paris-based architect Lina Ghotmeh. The following year’s Pavilion, named “Table,” aims to have as little environmental and carbon footprint as possible while fostering more significant guest interaction by encouraging them to stay a bit longer under one roof. From June to October 2023, the Serpentine Pavilion will be accessible, and this is, not surprisingly, the first time we see some outstanding architectural projects designed by women.
“À table is an invitation to dwell together in the same space and around the same table. It encourages us to enter a dialogue, convene, and think about how to reinstate and re-establish our relationship with nature and the Earth. – Lina Ghotmeh”
©Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture
À Table Unveiled: The Newly Serpentine Pavilion Design for 2023 by Lina Ghotmeh
For some of her quest for excellence, including the Stone Garden Apartment Building in Beirut, Lebanon, displayed at the 2021 Venice Biennale, Gothmeh received widespread acclaim. The Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture studio is renowned for its devotion to sustainability and its materially considerate approach to each project.
In her idea entitled “Table,” Lina offers a thin wooden framework with nine foldable petals held up by radiating ribs, recalling the French word for eating in a group. A circular group of booths and seating areas inside the Pavilion welcomings guests to enter, sit, unwind, dine, or work collaboratively. Lina claims that the limited size and low-hanging ceiling inspire people to feel close to the ground.
© Gilbert Hage
The Pavilion will have a timber frame and a roof with several rooflines extending out from the center designed to reflect the structures of tree leaves, echo the grounds and repeat the canopies of the trees in its surroundings. Additionally, a colonnade with translucent walls surrounds it and partially covers a central space with a low circular table.
The Serpentine Pavilion provides a joyful setting amid the modern world. It has a table around which attendees will sit in a straightforward, low environment modeled after the toguna huts of the Dogon people of Mali, West Africa. (a public structure built by the Dogon people that serves as a general gathering point), which tends to engage everyone in a community in conversation.
Ghotmeh summarises the Serpentine Pavilion as “A place we can dine, collaborate, enjoy, gather, communicate, reevaluate, and assess.”
©Lina Ghotmeh – Architecture
“We are thrilled to present Lina Ghotmeh’s first structure in the UK here at Serpentine next summer,” noted Bettina Korek, chief executive, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director at Serpentine Galleries. ‘Her design for À table draws on natural elements that reflect its surroundings in Kensington Gardens in London and expands on our mission of creating connections between architecture and society by promoting unity and togetherness in its form and function.”
Ghotmeh hopes the Pavilion will achieve her lifelong goal of promoting healthy and environmentally friendly living. She explained that the Earth, which encompasses us, is our primary food source; without it, all living things would perish. Ghotmeh added, “We can progress toward a more sustainable, eco-systemic communion with the Earth by reassessing our values and beliefs and how much we connect our relationships and the living world.”