The idea underpinning the design is that of a garden of quiet pleasure and ruminative calm set just a couple of minutes from the 24-hour motorised roar of Kensington Gore. "The concept", says Zumthor, "is the hortus conclusus, a contemplative room, a garden within a garden. The building acts as a stage, a backdrop for the interior garden of flowers and light. Through blackness and shadow one enters the building from the lawn and begins the transition into the central garden, a place abstracted from the world of noise and traffic and the smells of London – an interior space within which to sit, to walk, to observe the flowers. This experience will be intense and memorable, as will the materials themselves – full of memory and time."
In practice, it will be interesting to see how the Serpentine Gallery attempts to maintain an aura of floral calm in what, for the past decade and more, has been one of the most popular of the art world's summer events. With Zumthor offering a marriage of the Serpentine pavilion and the Chelsea flower show, crowds flocking to this nominally tranquil and self-effacing black-clad building may well be larger, and noisier, than usual. Zumthor, however, says his design "aims to help its audience take the time to relax, to observe and then, perhaps, start to talk again."
As with architects of the previous 10 Serpentine pavilions, Zumthor's is the architect's first completed building in England. The series began with Zaha Hadid in 2000 and has included such giants as Oscar Niemeyer, Alvaro Siza, Rem Koolhaas and Frank Gehry. What makes Zumthor stand out from such famous company is the fact that he tends to design just one carefully considered building at a time. Recently, he turned down an opportunity to consider a new library for Magdalen College, Oxford that most architects would have welcomed like manna from heaven. Like the most beautiful gardens, Zumthor's architecture is not to be hurried.
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