BIG’s 2016 Serpentine Pavilion Finds Permanent Residence in Downtown Vancouver
After residing in London’s Kensington Gardens in summer 2016, the Serpentine Pavilion “unzipped wall” by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) will be moving to North America. It will stop by New York, and Toronto, then it will find its final standing place between the high-rises of downtown Vancouver. The pavilion was purchased by Canadian developer Westbank who sponsored the project in 2016, and it will be standing on a location adjacent to the company’s headquarters in Shaw Tower. The pavilion will mark the area’s streetscape, connecting the city to the waterfront plaza where the 2010 Olympic Cauldron resides.
Courtesy of BIG – Image: Westbank
“Westbank has a well-established and growing relationship with Bjarke and his team at BIG,” said Ian Gillespie, Founder, Westbank. “Purchasing the Pavilion was a very natural extension of that partnership and we want to give Bjarke’s creation the most interesting afterlife of any of the previous pavilions.”
Courtesy of BIG – Image: Westbank
The ‘unzipped wall’ was designed by BIG to depict two concepts that seem to be opposed, creating a free-form yet structured space. It transforms from a straight line into a three-dimensional space, built from stacked rectangular frames of glass fiber, forming a sculptural tunnel-like landmark. However, the ‘unzipped wall” will not be the first Serpentine Pavilion to find a permanent resting place. Zaha Hadid’s Pavilion for summer 2007 still stands in Derbyshire England, while Toyo Ito and Cecil Balmond’s pavilion for 2002 has become a restaurant on the French Côte d’Azur.