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Serpentine Pavilion 2016, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). Photography: © Iwan Baan
Bjarke Ingels’ 2016 ‘unzipped’ Serpentine Pavilion will make its permanent home it Downtown Vancouver, it has been revealed.
The Danish architect’s highly instagramable structure – a towering stack of 1,800 translucent glass-fibre blocks – was bought by Canadian developer Westbank, a sponsor of the pavilion when it made its debut in London’s Kensington Gardens last summer. Speaking to Dezeen, the company said it will erect the structure on a permanent site next to its Shaw Towers HQ, opposite the 2010 Winter Olympics crystalline cauldron.
Says Ingels of his design: ‘We knew from the start that the pavilion would be sold after it was taken down from Kensington Gardens and rebuilt elsewhere… As a consequence the whole pavilion is conceived as an exercise in making something extraordinary out of the ordinary – and basically to create maximum variation out of a lot of identical elements.’
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But those who missed the structure – whose ‘zipper’ shape is said to be inspired by a shelving unit – the first time around might have to wait a little longer to see it in its new home…
According to Dezeen, the timeline for the structure’s permanent move is around the two-year mark, and could include pit-stops in Toronto and New York first.
Meanwhile the four summer houses commissioned to accompany BIG’s design are reported to have been sold, and 2015’s candy-coloured edition by SelgasCano was snapped up by Second Home.
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