The Seoul-based architect Minsuk Cho and his firm Mass Studies will design this year’s Serpentine Pavilion in London, the high-profile architectural platform erected every summer in Kensington Gardens that has become a fixture in the capital’s arts calendar. The 23rd pavilion (7 June-27 October) will be sponsored by the investment bank Goldman Sachs which has supported the project for the past decade.
Cho’s design, entitled Archipelagic Void, consists of five “islands” located around a central open space inspired by the madang, a small courtyard found in historic Korean houses. The five separate parts around the central area include a small library, an auditorium, a tea house and the gallery, which will act as the main entry point, extending Serpentine South’s curatorial activities outside, a gallery statement says.
Serpentine Pavilion 2024 designed by Minsuk Cho, Mass Studies. Design render, exterior view. Photo © Mass Studies Courtesy: Serpentine
Cho says in a statement: “We began by asking what can be uncovered and added to the Serpentine site, which has already explored over 20 iterations at the centre of the lawn, from a roster of great architects and artists. To approach this new chapter differently, instead of viewing it as a carte blanche, we embraced the challenge of considering the many existing peripheral elements while exploring the centre as a void.”
In a 2021 interview, he told the Commercial Design website: “I think everything you do is political.” In 2014, he co-curated the Korean Pavilion for the Venice Architecture Biennale, which won the Golden Lion for best national participation; his project in Venice, Crow’s Eye View: The Korean Peninsula, surveyed the architecture of North and South Korea.
Serpentine Pavilion 2024 designed by Minsuk Cho, Mass Studies. Design render, exterior view. Photo © Mass Studies Courtesy: Serpentine
The Serpentine Pavilion launched in 2000 as a platform for major international names to build their first structures in the UK capital. Past pavilions were designed by Zaha Hadid (2000), Frank Gehry (2008) and Sou Fujimoto (2013). Last year’s iteration was designed by Lina Ghotmeh who has been commissioned to design a new contemporary art museum in AlUla in north-west Saudi Arabia.
Former pavilions usually end up in private hands. In 2018, the Therme Group, a Vienna-based technology company which develops thermal spa facilities, acquired the pavilion designed by the Mexican architect Frida Escobedo. The first Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Zaha Hadid in 2000, became an events venue at the Flambards Theme Park in Cornwall. The 2012 pavilion designed by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei is in the collection of the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.