lina ghotmeh's lina ghotmeh unveils 'à table', her design for the 2023 serpentine pavilion in london

Lina Ghotmeh’s Serpentine pavilion will open in summer 2023

Lebanese-born architect Lina Ghotmeh has been selected to design the 22nd Serpentine Pavilion, which will be unveiled in Kensington Gardens in June 2023. Titled ‘À Table’, the next year’s Pavilion seeks a minimum carbon footprint and environmental impact, bringing visitors closer together by inviting them to linger under the same roof. ‘À Table is an invitation to dwell together in the same space and around the same table. It is an encouragement to enter into a dialogue, to convene, and to think about how we could reinstate and re-establish our relationship to nature and the Earth,’ says Lina Ghotmeh.

Drawing from nature, the resulting design will take the shape of a big wooden flower that shelters its guests under its petals. The organic design of the table forces a seated layout that fosters human interactions and observation, all the while encouraging a sense of togetherness and community. The 22nd Pavilion reflects Ghotmeh’s design sensibilities in her practice, considering social conditions, environments, and materials.

‘À table’ Reflects its natural surroundings

Supporting the annual project for the 9th consecutive year, Lina Ghotmeh’s Pavilion will unfurl the upcoming summer, making nature and sustainability the protagonist. Designed to minimize its carbon footprint and following Serpentine’s sustainability policy, the structure will be mainly made out of timber, introducing a lightweight and fully demountable skeleton.

‘Built with bio-sourced and low-carbon materials, the structure appears like a skeleton. Sustainably sourced timber ribs are arranged to support a suspended pleated roof. Echoing the structures of tree leaves, the Pavilion embraces the nature of the park in which it emerges. Reminding us of the many lives blossoming beneath our feet, the concave lines of its perimeter are drawn from the forms in the stems and canopies of adjacent trees. While rooted in its place and welcoming the space of the park with its open gallery-like envelope, the Pavilion grows as an adaptable system. It can be disassembled and reassembled, allowing it to live beyond its Serpentine site, while holding the memory of its original ground,’ explains the Paris-based architect.

Ghotmeh’s Pavilion is a work collaborated by both architecture and nature. Reflecting its surroundings in Kensington Gardens, it creates connections between the built space and nature, nurturing unity and togetherness. ‘The Earth that embraces us is our first source of sustenance; without it, we living beings, could not survive. [ ] As a Mediterranean woman, born and raised in Beirut, and living in Paris, I feel a deep belonging to our ground, to what it contains, and to what it embraces: from the buried yet weathering archaeologies of past civilisations to the embedded living world that spurs green life to sprout from every crack in the streets.’

Lina Ghotmeh © Gilbert Hage

Informed by thorough research on location history, typology of the place, and users’ habits, with an African-inspired notion, the structure provides a place for the community and social activities.‘ [ ] In today’s changing times, this Pavilion offers a celebratory space. It is endowed with a table, around which we will sit together in a modest, low structure and in an atmosphere reminiscent of toguna huts of the Dogon people in Mali, West Africa, designed to bring all members of a community together in discussion. Here we can eat, work, play, meet, talk, rethink, and decide.’

‘We are thrilled to present Lina Ghotmeh’s first structure in the UK here at Serpentine next summer. Her design for À table draws on natural elements that reflect its surroundings in Kensington Gardens and expands on our mission of creating connections between architecture and society by promoting unity and togetherness in its form and function. We are endlessly grateful to our loyal partners and supporters, for making Ghotmeh’s brilliant concept for a Pavilion built from stateof-the-art sustainable materials into an inspiring reality, for the people of London and for our visitors from around the world to enjoy all summer. As Etel Adnan once told us, The world needs togetherness, not separation. Love, not suspicion. A common future, not isolation,’ noted Bettina Korek, Chief Executive, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director.

Serpentine Pavilion 2023 designed by Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture Design render, exterior view Photo © Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture Courtesy: Serpentine