I visited the Serpentine pavilion 2008 last weekend while my head was still full of the thoughts from my last post. It led me to a revelation few days later, a whole new interpretation of the Frank Gehry pavilion and the architectural deconstructivism in general!
I didn’t realize how much Deconstructivism mirrors the hopes of our contemporary society. We progressively enter into an age where our biggest social and technological inventions are not the result of architectural plans anymore, but of spontaneous systemic emergences: Wikipedia, economic liberalism and systems like smart traffic lights are examples of self organized systems that control or at least influence our lives. Their shape is not well defined, they don’t follow any plan; they are fragmented. Because those systems are so important to us, we tend to idealize them. We want to believe that those huge, deformed monsters are better than anything we could have planned ourselves. They must be aesthetically pleasing. This is why we appreciate so much architectural deconstructivism, it makes us believe in our society.
Let me explain this more in details using the Frank Gehry pavilion. The Serpentine briefing is interesting on its own; the concept of their pavilions reminds me the Greek Agora: an open space used for assembly of the citizens. This is already a powerful statement. Are we in a society of citizen debates, open to everyone? Where are the places in London where people from all backgrounds gather in and debate? Starbucks coffees?
The open Agora of Gehry is covered by a defragmented / organic, elegant and protective root. It represents perfectly how we would like to see our society: defragmented technologies and social structures encouraging, inspiring open social debates, probably as refined and sophisticated as its structure.
Well, the pavilion’s roof might look like the result of spontaneous juxtapositions but it was undoubtedly meticulously supervised. And except the noteworthy activities organized by the Serpentine, no impromptu debates happens in the pavilion, people just go there to relax a little, maybe eating something before taking the tube back. The pavilion is a remarkable incarnation of our hopes. An ideal we can only take pictures of. But what is then the real shape of our society? Is deconstructivism a misleading paradigm or are we on our way to achieve it’s supposedly virtues? How and when?
Also to notice the remarkable urban exploration of Cao Fei in the RMB City currently exhibited at the gallery.
