Frank Gehry's Serpentine Pavilion 2008: A Disappointing Architectural Experiment

The ninth Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in London's Kensington Gardens, designed by American architect Frank Gehry, opened in July 2008 and ran until October 19, 2008. Initiated by director Julia Peyton-Jones, the pavilion hosted events including conferences, debates, concerts, performances, and film screenings, culminating in the Manifesto Marathon curated by co-director Hans Ulrich Obrist. The Serpentine Pavilion program has become a prestigious architectural label, selecting only star architects who have never built in the UK. Previous pavilions featured Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind, Toyo Ito, Oscar Niemeyer, MVRDV (unbuilt), Álvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura, Rem Koolhaas, Olafur Eliasson, and Kjetil Thorsen. Gehry's design, described as a 'gigantic wooden portico' reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's catapults, features disordered metal beams supporting a glass canopy, with wooden bleachers flanking a covered street connecting the gardens to the Serpentine Gallery. The structure appears menacing with collapsing timber logs, but the wood is merely cladding over a steel frame. Gehry, known since the 1960s for challenging architectural orthodoxy with transdisciplinary links and materials like cardboard and plaster, here questions constructive truth and ornament in line with contemporary technological culture. However, the 2008 pavilion fails to convince as an inviting space, and despite its ephemeral nature, there will be no 'Bilbao effect' in London.