Serpentine Galleries

Swipe to see dusk descend on the Pavilion.

Visit ‘A Capsule in Time’ by at Serpentine South until 26 October 2025.

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Thanks to our Headline Partner for their 11 consecutive years of support for the Pavilion.

Now open: Serpentine &  present the Play Pavilion designed by Sir Peter Cook!

This vibrant, interactive structure invites you to explore the creative possibilities of play. It features LEGO bricks both inside and out, including a wall specifically made for building your own LEGO® creations.

You might also pop out on a slide, crawl through a hole on the ground, or eavesdrop through a mouth-shaped opening.

Join us over the summer for a range of live activations that offer opportunities for collective and spontaneous acts of play – visitors of all ages are welcome!

📅 World Play Day, 11 Jun - 10 Aug 2025, check our website for opening hours
📍 Serpentine South
🎟️ Free to visit
 
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Images:

Presented in partnership with 
Construction by
Technical advisors

Ahead of the opening of the Play Pavilion, we visited the architect in his studio in London.

Having practiced for over half a century, the British architect is well known for his bold and imaginative designs. The Play Pavilion follows suit – it’s bright in colour, incorporates  bricks and features a slide.

You can hear more from Peter himself soon – Q&A dropping soon!

Now open! Serpentine Pavilion 2025: ‘A Capsule in Time’ by  

Tabassum’s Pavilion seeks to emphasise the sensory and spiritual possibilities of architecture. It’s comprised of four wooden capsule forms featuring translucent panels that diffuse and dapple light as it enters the space.

The structure will also be able to move – one of the four wooden capsules can connect with another, allowing the site to be reconfigured for different uses.

In the centre stands a Ginkgo tree, the leaves of which will slowly shift from green to yellow over the summer and into autumn.

Lining the interior are shelves storing books on Bengali culture, literature, poetry and ecology. We welcome you to have a browse during your visit!

🎟️ Free admission
📍 Serpentine South
📆 6 Jun - 26 Oct 2025, check our website for opening hours

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Photos:

Special thanks to our Headline Partner for their 11th consecutive year of support.
Major Support is provided by , Eugenio López and Esha and Robin Arora.
Technical Advisors
Construction by

‘Pressione’ by Giuseppe Penone is an imprint of the skin, enlarged, projected on a wall, and retraced.

The marks are done by human hands, but they also appear like the imprints of branches.

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[1-2] © Archivio Penone
[3-4] Photos © George Darrell. Courtesy Giuseppe Penone

If a river could speak, what would it say?

In 2017, the Whanganui river in New Zealand became the first river in the world to be recognised as a living being. Weaving Indigenous epistemologies with late-stage capitalism’s extractive logic, Hana Pera Aoake () argues that granting rivers legal personhood might be the last chance to restore their voice.

Read ‘Rivers / Water’ on our website or pick up a copy of the Serpentine Reader at our shop.

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Visuals: Aleksei Berkov (.studio)

The Bait Ur Rouf Mosque, one of ’s most celebrated projects, looks at the idea of Islam devoid of ritualistic and symbolic attributes.

The prayer hall, a cylinder inserted within the square site, is rotated along the axis of the qibla, the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca. The rotation creates four courtyards at the corners, with open terracotta brickwork allowing light and air to filter into the interior. This effect is enhanced by holes in the ceiling, which shed constellations of daylight onto the floor. 

Unlike most Bangladeshi mosques, reserved for men’s worship, the building doubles as a community centre for events and gatherings for all.

In 2016, Tabassum’s Bait Ur Rouf Mosque received the Aga Khan Award for Architecture for the design.

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Images:
[1, 2] Sandro Di Carlo Darsa
[4] Hasan Saifuddin Chandan
[3, 5] Asif Salman

takes us on a journey through salt, bloodletting and industrial extraction, revealing the material world as a web of persistence – one that resists human control.

Read ‘The Compulsion’ on our website.

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Visuals: Aleksei Berkov (.studio)

Panigram Eco Resort is an extension of Marina Tabassum Architects’ research on low-cost housing in rural Bangladesh. 

The project, an environmentally and socially responsible tourism site, represented an opportunity to incorporate local knowledge of material and craft developed over hundreds of years living in the Ganges river delta.

engaged residents of neighbouring villages in the process of design and construction, generating local economy and a shared sense of ownership. Vernacular architecture of the area informed the project, both with the unique ‘Bangla roof’ and planning centred around courtyards.

Community engagement went beyond construction: today, Panigram Community Initiatives train villagers to create crafts for resort guests, and savings groups initiated by MTA financially empower local residents, particularly women, demonstrating Tabassum’s position that architecture has a responsibility to go beyond building, towards tangible impact for community stakeholders.

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Image credits:
[1] © Kamrul Hasan Mithon
[2] Marina Tabassum
[3] Afreen Ahmed Rochana
[4] Afzalur Rahman Xelon

Calling art and food lovers – we’re hosting a supper club on 27 May with an after-hours tour of Arpita Singh: ‘Remembering’!

The celebratory feast of sharing dishes will be paired with music curated by Mahnoor ().

Swipe through for the food and drinks menus and head to our website to book.

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[3] Arpita Singh, ‘Untitled’, 1988. Courtesy of Nitin Bhayana Collection. © Arpita Singh

Designed by , this community centre was a longtime dream for residents in the neighbourhood of Zinzira. Located along the Buringanga River on the southern outskirts of Dhaka, the area had long been perceived as the city’s backyard, with little attention for development. 

But Dhaka was growing rapidly, and in 2010 the local member of Parliament ran on an election pledge to create new community centres in the neighbourhood – one a design by Tabassum – and won.

Completed in 2019, the building houses multipurpose, rentable spaces for a wide variety of community functions, including social and cultural events, alongside a library and small conference facility.

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Images: Asif Salman

How does history lodge itself in our bodies?

Okwui Okpokwasili () explores the echoes of colonialism, interrogating the stories we inherit, the violence we carry, and the potential to reshape this legacy.

Read ‘Why’ on our website or pick up a copy of the Serpentine Reader at our shop.

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Visuals: Aleksei Berkov (.studio)