Movie: in the next instalment of our exclusive video series, gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones explains why Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei dug into the ground to create their 2012 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.
Photograph by Luke Hayes
Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei teamed up in 2012 to create a sunken pavilion that rose just 1.5 metres above ground level.
Photograph by Jim Stephenson
The base of the structure descended beneath the lawn of Kensington Gardens, where the soil had been removed to reveal the imagined foundations of previous pavilions built on the site.
Photograph by Jim Stephenson
"It became a kind of excavation, where they dug down to into the garden," Peyton-Jones says in the movie. "What they did was a kind of homage to all the other pavilions." Photograph by Jim Stephenson
The series of excavated trenches and steps were lined with cork, which Peyton-Jones describes as having a very distinctive smell.
Photograph by Jim Stephenson
"It was kind of loamy, that wonderful English word," she recalls.

Related story: Bjarke Ingels to design Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2016

"Even though it was the height of summer, there was a coolness and a tranquility, a darkness and almost a dampness that was really very particular."
Photograph by Jim Stephenson
The pavilion also featured a circular pool, which formed the roof of the structure. It was supported by a series of twelve cork-lined colu...