Oscar Niemeyer is to design the new pavilion for London’s Serpentine Gallery. The challenge posed by the Serpentine has been taken up yearly since 2000 by world-famous architects. Before Niemeyer it was tackled by Zaha Hadid in 2000, by Daniel Libeskind in 2001 and by Toyo Ito last year. The pavilion, a temporary structure used to accommodate special events, can be visited from June to September, when it will be sold by public auction.

The 95-year-old Brazilian architect, born in Rio in 1907, is enthusiastic about his first British commission: “My idea was to keep this project different, free and audacious. That is what I prefer”, he has declared. “I like to draw, I like to see from the blank sheet of paper a palace, a cathedral, the figure of a woman appearing. But life for me is much more important than architecture”.

Serpentine Gallery Pavilion
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