Inspired by Queen Caroline's Temple, a little stone building in neoclassical style built in 1743 and attributed to William Kent, Asif Khan’s Summer House built in the gardens of the Serpentine Gallery for the 2016 Architecture Programme is a place that encourages visitors to establish an intimate relationship with the landscape and with their own inner thoughts.
The Serpentine Gallery presented a packed Architecture Programme for the summer of 2016, offering the public not only the Pavilion, designed by BIG - Bjarke Ingels Group this year, but also four "Summer Houses" designed by architects Kunlé Adeyemi – NLE (Amsterdam / Lagos), Barkow Leibinger (Berlin / New York), Yona Friedman (Paris) and Asif Khan (London).
The Summer Houses are installations inspired by Queen Caroline's Temple, a little stone building in neoclassical style built in 1743 and attributed to William Kent. In his Summer House architect Asif Khan started out with in-depth study of the little temple, and found that its construction was precisely aligned with the sun, amplified by the reflection of light in the water of the newly created Serpentine Lake. This effect was compromised in 1826 with the construction of John Rennie bridge.
In his project, Asif Khan therefore decided to restore this lost experience for visitors, adding a little polished metal platform and roof to his Summer House, surrounded by a fence of undulating timber staves which creates a filter between indoors and outdoors, defining the side borders of the three concatenated enclosures forming the Summer House. The soil is covered with gravel to mediate the connection of these wooden slats with the ground, creating a gentle transition between the horizontal and vertical planes.
(Agnese Bifulco)
Images courtesy of Serpentine Gallery, photo by Iwan Baan, Hufton + Crow,Asif Khan, Helene Binet,
http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/
http://www.asif-khan.com/
