Every year since 2000 a chosen architect designs a folly pavilion that is erected near the Serpentine Galleryin Hyde Park in London. (Photographer Iwan Baan has photographed many if not all) Architect Smiljan Radic’s pavilion opened there last summer and after its run, the Radic Pavilion was carefully carved up, reinstalled in art gallery Hauser & Wirth’s outpost in the english countryside in Somerset. The views out of of the great curved openings in the elevated structure are beautiful and just eight months after opening there have already been some 90,000 visitors, more than double what they estimated. The Radic Pavilion has perhaps the happiest afterlife of any Serpentine structure. While the majority of the 15 pavilions created for the London gallery are in long-term storage, other structures will never exceed their trumpeted debuts in Kensington Gardens, this pebble-like folly will likely be intriguing and engaging visitors for decades to come.
