Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010 by Jean Nouvel

Next up in our exclusive video series with Julia Peyton-Jones, the Serpentine Gallery director discusses Jean Nouvel’s bright red 2010 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion featuring a dramatic 12-metre-high wall. The world-famous French architect’s 2010 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion consisted of bold geometric forms rendered in a vivid red colour reminiscent of traditional London buses, telephone boxes and postboxes. “Jean Nouvel was the first architect to really use colour,” Peyton-Jones says in the movie. “That searing pillar box red was remarkable, and the visual resonance against the green of the park highlighted how gorgeous the setting is.” Made from a steel frame clad with translucent materials, the pavilion featured retractable canvas awnings, as well as a huge sloped glass wall supported in cantilever on one side. “That great form came down as a counterbalance and was really dramatic,” Peyton-Jones says. “It was a fantastically good summer, so it was possible to have the roof open and think: ‘We can’t be in England.'”