Serpentine Pavilion review — an elegant and accomplished utopian vision

Some things move seamlessly between the sunlit veld of South Africa and the damp streets of London — wine, diamonds and Kolpak cricketers spring to mind. But “history”? Well, why not?

It may initially seem presumptuous for a trio of Johannesburg-based architects to offer us a lesson in the recent history of London, to be specific, but then the themes of transience and migration are so universal, and the radical agenda so delicately wrapped within an engaging form, that somehow the serene setting of Kensington Gardens feels entirely appropriate.

And what Sumayya Vally, Sarah de Villiers and Amina Kaskar — all born in 1990 and collectively known as Counterspace — have done with the 2021 Serpentine Pavilion is rather clever.

Initiated by Zaha Hadid, the Anglo-Iraqi superstar, in 2000, the (almost) annual commission has often proved thought-provoking, conjuring spectacular whimsies on to the lawn beside the august café-cum-gallery, none better than Bjarke Ingels’s “unzipped wall” of 2016. Pop-up structures have been used to delight, amaze, amuse, and as a sort of international calling card for up-and-coming architects. But using the temporary pavilion to express a sort of inherent, soul-deep ephemerality seems the most apt application yet.

Probably the largest work in the series to date, and resembling an art deco riff on a Doric temple as much as anything, the Counterspace pavilion does this by drawing on shapes found among migrant communities in places such as Brixton, Hackney, Whitechapel, Peckham and Ealing. A scalloped column might reflect the arch of a mosque in east London, a dais a black bookshop in Dalston. It references hair salons, grocery stores, porch steps. But it is a subtle, elegant agglomeration. And, for the first time, the pavilion, which was held over from 2019 for obvious reasons, will also be added to throughout its brief summer life. Four additional elements, installations in their own right, will be attached: the fragments are at present in Finsbury Park, Notting Hill, Deptford and Barking, accumulating unique lives of their own, celebrating the ever-changing face and faces of this most international of cities.

Is it in danger of becoming a temple of woke? I don’t think so — it seems too elegant, too accomplished for that. Yes, it may be built of black cork and white concrete, but it blurs its own colours: it’s an easy melting pot, a broad church, perhaps reflecting the perspective that growing up in the rainbow nation confers. It’s enveloping, not didactic. It seems to say you can enjoy it for what it is, and take what lessons you want.

Certainly that’s the hope of Vally, the lead on the project, who grew up in a Muslim household in Durban before meeting her two partners at the University of Witwatersrand. “I hope that everyone can feel welcome,” she says. “We were trying to create an architecture of generosity, to create different scales of intimacy, where people can gather and meet. It’s about spaces that hold culture and trades, where boundaries are lost in diversity, and where communities are fostered.”

It’s a utopian vision, but after the past year, isn’t it nice to have such a special place to dream?