The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010.

[blahflowers]

It's become something of a hobby over the last few years to head to the Serpentine Gallery around this time of year to see their summer pavilion. I rarely go to the Serpentine Gallery otherwise. I find it too much as an art gallery, it tends to dump any old crap in there and, possibly due to lack of space, makes no effort at all to explain what is there or why. If you don't like it you're insufficiently smart, I don't like it, I'm definitely not clever enough, therefore I don't go. Simples.

But I've checked the pavilion out for the last four years, before heading off elsewhere. I have to say this is my least favourite yet, even more than 2006's rather bland cosmic egg effort by Rem Koolhaas. From a distance it looks promising, bright red with spikes on one end. Come closer and you realise you are just seeing a wall that rises somewhat pointlessly much higher than the roof of the building itself. Underneath this everyone eats in an angry red gloom as though the hot summer were caused by the sun's earlier than scheduled transformation into a red giant.

It's notable how crowded this is, compared to Frank Gehry's pavilion of two years ago or even last year's offering by Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima. With the exception of a small box with a few cushions taken over by children if not intended for them anyway the entire space is covered by tables and chairs, so if you want to do anything else you're going outside, into the sun, where a couple of red hammocks and table tennis facilities have been placed. The pavilions I've seen previously have always been airy, even when they aren't open. This is the first one I've seen that's felt cramped. I don't know whether this is the gallery's influence, whether after two washout summers they wanted a substantial space safely under covers so the great and good of Kensington and Chelsea can be wined and dined without them getting wet.