Frank Gehry 5 Sept 2008

This year’s Serpentine Pavilion has been designed by Frank Gehry, another international architect who is woefully unrepresented in concrete, .....and wood, ....in the United Kingdom.

It is the recurring objective of the Serpentine commissions to showcase such ignored architects with giant reputations.

Our visit to the Serpentine was overdue. While I dodged one girl in black who was soliciting donations, Mrs Monk asked another girl in black about the sustainability of the timber used in the construction.

This was a good question since the vast quantity of timber used, seemed to have no structural function, and would in fact have added a structural burden, that needed to be supported rather than providing the structural support that the building would require.

In other words the building is structurally inefficient and the modernist mantra of form following function has been abandoned.

This is an observation and not a criticism since I believe that such buildings are entitled to be monumental rather than economic, but Mr Gehry is unlikely to endear himself to the penny pinching accountants that hand out architectural commissions in the United Kingdom.

The building was engineered by Arup