Striking techno-craft in Kensington Gardens

Spanish architectural studio Selgascano have brought a psychedelic play with colours and materials to the Serpentine Gallery lawns. The new Summer Pavilion, which opened this week, is the fifteenth commission in the history of the pavilions and one of the more controversial designs in recent years. Expectations rise each year and the unusual mix of artisanal and techno can seem confusing, especially here as the most highly finished attention to detail has been the norm.

The rainbow-coloured materials, stretched over the irregular pavilion structure, play with reflections even under grey skies. But it’s inside when the sun hits the surfaces, where the play with light really comes alive. José Selgas, who partners in the Madrid office with his wife Lucia Cano, says colour is just the outcome of their creative process where they try out different materials: “We don’t care about colour, we just play with absolute freedom”.

Cano talks about the engineered plastic ETFE material they used in two layers here: ”We have used it before, but in a very different way. Here we did experiments, we added the colour and the mirror effects.” Their approach is playful and dressed in youthful outfits with matching colour-coded details together they embody the new generation of architects. They explore materials, forms and technological possibilities, pushing the boundaries of how architecture is perceived. And that’s certainly what the pavilion is and should be for.

The couple have been working together since 1998. Selgas says they feel a strong connection to the Spanish architectural heritage, although in the pavilion design they wanted to acknowledge the fourteen works by the previous architects. He explains their contribution is part of a longer process where each architectural design communicates with the others. “It was important to do something different” he says. “We love the artisanal, the handcrafted touch and we didn’t think that it would be possible with this kind of commission, where it would need to be prefabricated. But we have been able to experiment “.

For Selgascano the pavilion is a work in progress, which will be in London until October, then dismantled and moved elsewhere. The sense of fun makes up for some of the flaws, although the architecture establishment might not be entirely convinced. But as José Selgas points out the pavilion concept is in a stage of transition and will evolve and change: “It’s the starting point for the next period”. Maybe in the future there will increasingly be young emerging talent with experimental ideas to further challenge the norms of the architectural community.

Events program runs through the summer until end of October
www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/serpentine-pavilion-2015

HELSINKI: The Tuomas Uusheimo Exhibition
New exhibition by Berlin-based photographer Tuomas Uusheimo http://www.uusheimo.com opened in Helsinki this week. Uusheimo travels extensively on commercial assignments all over the world and has also spent longer periods in one place on artists’ residencies, in Tunisia recently. He trained as an architect first, which shows in the way he observes the built environment. The photographs showcased at the Lasipalatsi Film and Media Centre form a story of observations from different locations across the globe.

There is a meticulousness in the way Uusheimo captures light and architectural forms in his compositions. A great example of this is the image we used for the cover of Grand Tour Helsinki guide: a view with four landmark buildings. Uusheimo is experienced working with the cool Nordic light, but says it can be tricky: “Maybe just the lack of it really. And that is a good thing too” he said, “I shoot a lot in the mornings and at nightfall when the light is scarce, it often creates more interesting atmosphere than direct sunlight and blue skies”.

Uusheimo uses mostly a Canon 5D Mark III, which he says has a great selection of lenses. Even on commercial assignments he prefers natural light and rarely uses additional light equipment. One of the most spectacular, although challenging, moments he has encountered was in Hämeenlinna in Finland a couple of years ago: “It was the darkest time of the year when the sun hardly rises above the horizon, which makes the gloom of twilight last longer. There was fresh snow on the ground from the night before. The temperature was around -25C and the weather was crystal clear with tiny ice snowflakes in the air. The setting was perfect in terms of light.”

The exhibition space is housed in the 1930s Lasipalatsi building, a key example of Nordic modernist architecture, which has been recently restored. The young Viljo Revell was one of the architects behind its iconic form.

http://www.lasipalatsi.fi/info-en
http://www.lasipalatsi.fi/tapahtumat/event/444—souvenirs-matkamuistoja-tuomas-uusheimon-valokuvia

Kokemäki, 2014

Bangkok I, 2012

Brussels I, 2009

PARIS

First sightings of Frank Gehry’s Louis Vuitton Foundation, his dream vessel for the cultural heritage of France: a hulking stern of vast glass sails, a new-age Time Bandit Galleon. While monumental and majestic, it also looks soft – almost like the sky-grey opaque, sky-reflecting, panels could ripple in the breeze. Their size is only accentuated by the newly planted rows of trees near the main entrance, creating a bizarre Bonsai effect in tandem with the surrounding park.

Once inside, the architectural approach is more formal, with a vast, boxy lobby area and a glass-panelled bookshop. It’s like entering a vast white container before navigating, either by ascending or descending, the other decks. From here on Gehry’s expression of a dream vessel gathers pace, producing not just one dream, but a series of dreams within dreams, as each level presents unexpected moments – sometimes hangar-like gallery spaces, sometimes smaller, darker intimate spaces. Moving upwards, not only do you get close up views of the complex, skeletal structures supporting the building’s curved sails, but also brief glimpses of the Bois and irregular-shaped snapshots of Paris, including at one moment, a rather apologetic, size-O, Eiffel Tower, rising in the distance – another dream from a more rigid age of architecture.

Continuing up the rough-hewn sandstone staircases, that seem strangely soft to the foot, or taking the requisite intergalactic escalators, the eye is constantly challenged by the edgy contrast of materials. Rock meets satinized sheets of white metal, elaborate twisted girders, like tangled ribs, gracefully turn and transcend into giant arcs of golden oak, while metallic escalators undulate like the graceful, gentle waterfall downstairs.

With each twist and turn  – and there are many in the structure – I felt like I was a modern-day Jonah, exploring the insides of a technological whale. Even outside, the upstairs terraces, with planted areas and magnificent views, continue the mystery as new ways to climb up towards the crows nest present themselves with each twist and bend.

After the busy-ness of the architectural structures upstairs, and certainly under the shade of night, the submerged basement areas, with their hypnotic pools of water, provide another element of contrast with what towers above. And yet all is not as it seems. An installation of mirrors by Olafur Eliasson create dizzying vistas of refracted black silhouettes on acid yellow, a beguiling catwalk, its zigzag trajectory mirrored in the still waters of the lake beneath.  It’s like a duotone fashion shoot from an Orson Welles movie: Figures appear… only to disintegrate. Now near … now far. All in a dazzling glow of sulphourous yellow.

I might be mistaken, but at one point the reflections of the diagonal pillars started to dance in front of me, and for a moment, I’m sure I caught sight of an L overlapping a V in the waters below. Maybe it was just another dream within a dream?

 Text and photos: Mathew Birch

LONDON

There is always an element of surprise inside the temporary, deluxe showroom at Frieze Masters in Regents Park. Designed by New York-based architect Annabelle Selldorf http://www.selldorf.com, it’s an elegant structure, where classical art and old masters change owners. Only a small part of visitors could ever buy anything, but what a great opportunity for seeing rare artworks available on the market.

This year it wasn’t an individual work, but the stand of Helly Nahmad Gallery http://www.hellynahmad.com, a new exhibitor at Frieze, that  became the talk of the fair. Key 20th century master works, including Lucio Fontana, Pablo Picasso and Morandi were staged within a film-set-like installation; and no one passed by without stopping – at least to see why so many people were congregating there. The presentation was  the total opposite of the clinical, neutral gallery cube designed for close inspection of art works – a breath of fresh air for that reason.

Conceived by set designer Robin Brown, the stand conveyed an essence of bohemian 1960s Paris, with an imaginary home complete with an inspiringly chaotic study, set against a Fontana and a Dubuffet amongst an accumulation of stuff, evoking a state of creative obsession.

Morandis, Miros and Picassos were scattered amid personal notes and photographs into a sprawling composition. The whole presentation had a strange sense of humanism, quite the opposite to the darker narratives seen in many contemporary installations.

The setting provided an opportunity to relate with an eccentric, imaginary collector, and also to realise the transient nature of our data-driven existence. The accumulation of personal belongings, photographs and stacked magazines – in today’s world stored on iCloud and hard drives – is a link to a historical context, a previous existence before the digital age.

There was a sense of nostalgia for the high modernist ideals of the 1960s, before the onset of other types of radical post-modern ideas of the following decades. The space was messy, but also strangely positive and exhilarating.

Brown’s presentation provided many interesting contextual ideas around the paintings and the period when they circulated on the market as avant-garde novelties. Now these works belong to museums, or the homes of the very rich, the ‘art world’ elite, which has become a philosophical subject elsewhere.

“It will be a one-off” Brown said, clearly happy with all the attention that the installation has attracted. The king size bed below the Burri and Twombly paintings, next to Giacometti’s sculptures, with Godard films on the boxy TV, was a nostalgic reminder of French cultural values in dialogue with contemporary installations like Emin’s famous bed.

M.W.