Serpentine Hyde Park London. Arquitectura efémera.

Abstract

Architecture is generally associated with the idea of permanence, with the idea that it projects something whose construction will last for more than one generation, or even for several centuries. However, this study of mine focuses on ephemeral constructions, because of the fascination caused in me by the initiatives which have been taking place in London, from the year 2000 on, in Hyde Park, with the Summer Pavilions installed there every year, just for as long as three months, in front of Serpentine Gallery. Having chosen as my Case Studies these materializations of the Serpentine Pavilion led by prominent names in world architecture, as were the cases of Siza Vieira (2005), Rem Koolhaas (2006), Olafur Eliasson (2007), Frank Gehry (2008), Kazujo Sejima & Ryue Nishizawa (2009) and Jean Nouvel (2010), I approach those characteristicswhich I consider to be distinctive of ephemeral architecture. My Case Studies were chosen, not only for their success, but essentially because, in my opinion, they manifest one same guideline, one that justifies my thesis inasmuch as ephemeral architecture lies within modernism in architecture. These are my arguments. The unique, unrepeatable and inventive forms revealed by the graphic conceptions of those six projects for the Serpentine Pavilions which I have chosen as my Case Studies, are clear proof attestingto the validity of my thesis. In them, several defining characteristics of modernism are positively stated, namely a certain rebellion, opting for unfinished forms and ingenious contrasts, both in the distribution of volumes and the options taken for the layout of the approach routes, as well as of the inner routes, and also ingenious contrasts in the colours used and in the light effects, the enhancement of what is fleeting in daily life, their efforts to materialize the abstract. Ephemeral architecture invites the public to enjoy in a celebrating atmosphere the spaces it designs, and unites in close association the natural elements (water, trees, birds) with the products of the new technology industry, many of them used as building materials in it's constructions. I herewith offer and describe, basically, three great examples of constructions which were innovative, distinguished, and modernist, to the utmost level, in ephemeral architecture, each one in it's own way: the Crystal Palace, of 1851, in London, the Eiffel Tower, of 1889, in Paris, and the German Pavilion, of 1929, by Mies Van der Rohe, built in Barcelona. In those three examples of ephemeral architecture, which reached maximum success at their respective times of construction, the pre-fabrication methods and the swiftness in achieving all the phases of their initiatives, joined the boldness, the entrepeneurship, and the use of the scientific and technologic advances of their times. Iron, steel, new metal alloys, strong and light, find here their use and, in my Case Studies carried out for the Serpentine Pavilion, emerge in surprising contrasts with wood, with textiles, with acrylic, with glass. And, in the case of the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies Van der Rohe (1929), stone in very well accomplished contrast with glass and, both, in contrast with water. Ephemeral architecture deals with the new cultural and social attitudes by adapting itself, creating spaces where the presentation of the performances of other arts, like cinema, music, theatre, and dance, are integrated into multipurpose halls - for example, that one which is a café by day, is transformed into an auditorium by night.