Serpentine Pavilion 2018: Mexican artist creates soothing haven with the humble roof tile

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Robert Bevan11 June 2018

Frida Escobedo has taken a humble, off-the-shelf, concrete roof tile and with it has created a charcoal courtyard of industrial delicacy for the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion.

The Mexican architect, the youngest ever charged with the task, has used the stacked tiles, supported internally on steel dowels, to form perforated celosias — the sun-shading breeze walls that are a feature of Latin American modernism.

Within the rectilinear court is nested an inner sanctum where a bellied ceiling of polished metal is aligned with the Greenwich Meridian, anchoring the pavilion in the locale and letting the changing light that filters in chart the passage of the day.

Black structures have a certain light-absorbing drama, but while they have had something of a revival of late, they have only occasionally found favour with architects — the dark dazzle of Art Deco or the banal smoked mirror glass of the Eighties office, for instance. Inner walls separate off the bar area at one end and create an intimate dead-end at the other — like taking a wrong turn in a maze.

​Escobedo pulls it off with a precision and satisfying completeness that has rarely been matched in previous years, yet she cleverly dials it down to avoid an alienating machine-made finish. The curve of the tiles softens the edges.

Frida Escobedo to design Serpentine Pavilion 2018 - In pictures

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Some may still find the stealthy blackness harsh — brutal even — but when the sun emerges from behind a cloud, the interior glitters, reflecting the outer-world in both the polished ceiling and a shallow, trapezoidal mirror pool.

In a raw, urban setting it could be a light-sucking prison, and it promises to be wilfully moody on a stormy day, but when the heat beats down on Hyde Park, step inside and you will be soothed.

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion over the years - In pictures

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Night-time promises veiled mystery, and with a full programme of events from singers, storytellers and drag queens, splintered light and chatter will spill out into the park dusk.

It’s all very intense. But in a good way. The Pavilion opens to the public this Friday.

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