Serpentine has announced that Lanza Atelier, the Mexico City–based studio founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, has been selected to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2026.
Titled a serpentine, the Pavilion will open to the public at Serpentine South from 6 June to 25 October 2026, with Goldman Sachs supporting the commission for the twelfth consecutive year.
The 2026 Pavilion marks a significant anniversary: the 25th edition of one of the world’s most influential architectural commissions. To celebrate this milestone, Serpentine will partner with the Zaha Hadid Foundation, honouring the spirit of experimentation inaugurated by Hadid’s first Pavilion in 2000.
Architecture Rooted in Use and Encounter
Founded in 2015, LANZA atelier’s practice is grounded in the everyday and the informal, attentive to how craft, technology, and spatial intelligence emerge through use and assembly.LANZA Atelier (Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo). Photo ©Pia Riverola
For the Serpentine Pavilion, this ethos translates into an architecture that foregrounds collective experience, positioning the Pavilion not as an isolated object but as a civic structure shaped by movement, pause, and proximity.
The Serpentine Wall as Spatial Device
The Pavilion draws inspiration from the serpentine (or crinkle-crankle) wall, an English architectural feature composed of alternating curves. Originating in ancient Egypt and later introduced to England by Dutch engineers, this wall achieves structural stability through geometry, requiring fewer bricks than a straight wall of the same thickness.
LANZA atelier reinterprets this typology as both form and metaphor. The gently curving wall subtly echoes the nearby Serpentine Lake, named for its winding shape, while the serpent itself becomes a symbolic figure—generative and protective, shaping space while enabling growth.
Brick, Light, and Permeability
Brick is chosen as the Pavilion’s primary material, celebrating the English garden tradition and establishing a dialogue with the historic brick façade of Serpentine South Gallery, once itself a tea pavilion.
Through a rhythmic repetition of brick columns, the wall shifts from opaque to permeable, allowing light and air to filter through and softening the boundary between enclosure and openness.
A translucent roof rests lightly on the brick structure, evoking a grove of trees. The Pavilion is positioned to work in harmony with the surrounding canopy, ensuring that architecture and landscape remain in continuous dialogue.
A Pavilion of Movement and Pause
The configuration of a serpentine is conceived as a device that both reveals and withholds.
As visitors move through the Pavilion, the curving geometry shapes rhythm and orientation, framing moments of encounter, shelter, and rest.
The architecture does not dictate a single path, but instead invites wandering, gathering, and informal occupation, reinforcing the Pavilion’s role as an open civic space.
A Platform for Exchange
Throughout the summer and into autumn, the Serpentine Pavilion 2026 will host Serpentine’s live and events programme, spanning music, film, theatre, dance, literature, philosophy, fashion, and technology.
As with previous editions, the programme will respond directly to the Pavilion’s architecture, activating the space through performance, dialogue, and participation.
In 2026, Serpentine will also present a dedicated architectural programme in collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation, reflecting on Hadid’s legacy while fostering conversations about the future of architectural experimentation.
A Gentle Geometry for Collective Life
With a serpentine, LANZA atelier proposes an architecture defined not by spectacle, but by careful geometry, material honesty, and openness to use.
Built from simple clay brick and shaped by a continuous curve, the Pavilion becomes a bridge between cultures and geographies, between Europe and the Americas, between past traditions and contemporary practice.
In Kensington Gardens, the Pavilion will stand as a quiet yet powerful reminder that architecture’s most enduring role is to bring people together—through light, movement, and shared space.
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Images: Serpentine Pavilion 2026 a serpentine, designed by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, LANZA atelier. © LANZA atelier. Courtesy Serpentine.
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