The Serpentine Pavilion are branching out to Beijing, China with an inaugural commission by Chinese studio JIAKUN Architects will be opening this May.

The new pavilion designed by JIAKUN Architects was announced as a collaboration with WF CENTRAL from Beijing, - a luxury shopping and hotel complex in the Dongcheng district of the Chinese capital, only a stones-throw away from the iconic Forbidden City.

This will be the first Serpentine Pavilion to be built outside the UK and, like the annual editions in London's Kensington Gardens, it will be used to host a programme of public events.

The winning design by Sichuan practice JIAKUN Architects was selected by a committee of eight, including the Serpentine Galleries' artistic director Hans-Ulrich Obrist, CEO Yana Peel and architect David Adjaye.

According to the architects, the pavilion design takes inspiration from Confucianism, having the architecture act as a physical representation of the traditional pursuit of Junzi.-

"The design is characterized by the figure of the Archer, in the form of a curved cantilever beam that incorporates the forces of elasticity through cables stretched between steel plates. Although modern architecture in Beijing has developed a series of powerful techniques to fight the external forces of fierce winds and unpredictable earthquakes, the Pavilion's integral structure aims — like the Tai Chi Master — to conquer the harshness of those forces with softness."

Initiated in 2000, the annual London Serpentine Pavilion commissions have showcased temporary structures designed by the biggest names in the craft, such as Rem Koolhaas, Frank Gehry, SANAA, Jean Nouvel, Peter Zumthor, Herzog & de Meuron with Ai Weiwei and more recently Sou Fujimoto, Smiljan Radic, SelgasCano, Bjarke Ingels, and Diébédo Francis Kéré.

More information

Liu Jiakun Born in 1956 in Chengdu, People’s Republic of China, he spent much of his childhood in the corridors of Chengdu Second People’s Hospital, founded as Gospel Hospital in 1892, where his mother was an internist. He credits the environment of the Christian medical institute for cultivating his lifelong inherent religious tolerance. Although nearly all of his immediate family members were physicians, he displayed an interest in creative arts, exploring the world through drawing and literature, eventually prompting a teacher to introduce architecture as a profession.

At seventeen, Liu was part of China’s Zhiqing a program of “educated youth” assigned to vocational peasant farming in the countryside. Life, at the time, felt inconsequential, until he was accepted to attend the Institute of Architecture and Engineering in Chongqing (renamed Chongqing University) in 1978. Admittedly, he didn’t fully comprehend what it meant to be an architect but, “like a dream, I suddenly realized my own life was important.”

Liu graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Architecture in 1982 and was amongst the first generation of alumni tasked with rebuilding China during a transformative time for the nation. Working for the state-owned Chengdu Architectural Design and Research Institute in his early career, he volunteered to temporarily relocate to Nagqu, Tibet (1984–1986), the highest region on earth, because, “my major strength of the time seemed to be my fear of nothing, and, in addition, my painting and writing skills.” During those years and the several that followed, he was an architect by day, but an author by night, deeply engrossed in literary creation.

He nearly relinquished his architecture career until attending the 1993 solo architectural exhibition of Tang Hua, a former classmate from university, at the Shanghai Art Museum, reigniting his passion for the profession and fueling a new mindset that he, too, could deviate from prescribed societal aesthetics. He considers this transformational realization—that the built environment could serve as a medium for personal expression—as the moment that his architectural career truly began. He would soon experience his most formative years of intellectual growth, debating the purpose and power of architecture with contemporaries, including artists Luo Zhongli and He Duoling, and poet Zhai Yongming. 

Liu Jiakun founded JIAKUN Architects in 1999. Since then Liu has been featured in international exhibitions including Experimental Architecture by Young Chinese Architects - The 20th UIA World Congress of Architects (1999, Beijing, China); TU MU Young Architecture From China (2001, Berlin, Germany); Urban Creation, Shanghai Biennale (2002, Shanghai, China); the 1st, 3rd and 7th Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (2005, 2009 and 2017, Shenzhen, China); the 11th and 15th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2008 and 2016, Venice, Italy); the 56th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2015, Venice, Italy); Now and Here - Chengdu | Liu Jiakun: Selected Works (2017, Berlin, Germany); and Super Fusion - Chengdu Biennale (2021, Chengdu, China).

Currently, he is a visiting professor at the School of Architecture Central Academy of Fine Arts (Beijing, China), and has previously lectured at Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine (Paris, France), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America), Royal Academy of Arts (London, United Kingdom), and leading institutions in China. Awards have included the Far Eastern Architectural Design, Outstanding Award (2007 and 2017); ASC Grand Architectural Creation Award (2009); Architectural Record China Awards (2010); WA Awards for Chinese Architecture (2016); Building with Nature, Architecture China Award (2020); Sanlian Lifeweek City for Humanity Awards for Public Contribution (2020); and UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation, New Design in the Heritage Contexts (2021).

Liu continues to practice and reside in Chengdu, China, prioritizing the everyday lives of fellow citizens through his works.

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Published on: February 2, 2018
Cite: "Serpentine Pavilion is coming to Beijing this May" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/serpentine-pavilion-coming-beijing-may> ISSN 1139-6415
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