Serpentine Gallery – The Red Sun Pavilion

Jean Nouvel – Red Sun Pavilion, (London Serpentine Gallery), 2009-2010

Jean Nouvel writes: "…..Red is summer heat. Red complements green.
Red is bright, alive, piercing.
Red is provocative, forbidden, loud.
Red is as English as a red rose, as red as London’s iconic objects, a double-decker bus or a telephone box, the transitory places we gravitate towards.
Red doesn’t last. Heat vanishes with the summer. Energy fades into inertia and death. The rose loses its petals and the sun is only red in the fleeting fire of dawn and dusk, when it appears and disappears. Red is the colour of passion, of fragile love that can never be eternal. Which is why we cultivate red, kindle it like a flame, protect and prolong it.
The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010 switches to red to celebrate summer and its dazzling, burning-hot sun.
The pavilion exists to welcome summer and the sun, to better play with them.