26th Serpentine Pavilion 2026, London, UK

26th Serpentine Pavilion in London

Updated 19 May + 26 January 2026

Design: studio LANZA atelier

At Serpentine South 6 June – 25 October 2026

Location: Kensington Gardens, West London, England, UK

The 2026 Serpentine Pavilion designed by Mexican architecture studio LANZA atelier, founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo opens on 6 June 2026. Goldman Sachs will support the annual project for the 12th consecutive year.

Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo of LANZA atelier. Photo © Pia Riverola

26th Serpentine Pavilion 2026 by studio LANZA atelier

Serpentine is delighted to announce that the Mexican architecture studio LANZA atelier, founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, has been selected to design the 2026 Pavilion.

Titled a serpentine, LANZA atelier’s Pavilion will be unveiled to the public at Serpentine South on 6 June 2026 with Goldman Sachs supporting the annual project for the 12th consecutive year. As the Pavilion reaches its 25th edition, Serpentine will celebrate this landmark anniversary through a special partnership with the Zaha Hadid Foundation.

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 a serpentine, designed by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, LANZA atelier. Design render, aerial view © LANZA atelier. Courtesy Serpentine.

Throughout its history, the Serpentine Pavilion has grown into a highly anticipated showcase for emerging talents. The Pavilion has evolved over the years as a participatory public and artistic platform for Serpentine’s experimental, interdisciplinary, community and education programmes.

LANZA atelier Mexico City architecture studio

LANZA atelier, founded in 2015 by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, is a Mexico City-based architecture studio. Their collaborative practice is rooted in the everyday and the informal, attentive to how technology, craft, and spatial intelligence emerge in unexpected conditions. Their work locates beauty in use, assembly, and encounter, proposing ways of building that foreground dialogue and collective experience.

The duo places particular emphasis on hands-on design methods such as drawing and model-making, treating them as active tools for thinking through material, form, and structure. Working globally, the studio understands architectural practice as one that moves fluidly across cultural spaces, residential projects, public infrastructure, and furniture design, through a critical and engaged perspective.

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 a serpentine, designed by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, LANZA atelier. Design render, exterior view. © LANZA atelier. Courtesy Serpentine.

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 Design by LANZA atelier

For this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, LANZA atelier took its inspiration from the English architecture feature known as a serpentine or crinkle-crankle wall which forms one side of the pavilion. This type of brick wall, composed of alternating curves, originated in ancient Egypt and was later introduced to England by Dutch engineers. Its curvilinear form provides stability through lateral support, meaning the one-brick-wide serpentine wall requires fewer bricks than a straight wall. The eponymous feature also subtly nods to the nearby Serpentine lake, named for its gentle curvature, evoking the form of a serpent.

In dialogue with the surrounding landscape, a second wall works in harmony with the tree canopy without disrupting it, while the main structure is positioned on the Northern side of the site. A translucent roof rests lightly on brick columns evoking a grove of trees. The pavilion’s configuration allows light and air to permeate the space, softening the boundary between enclosure and openness.

LANZA atelier chose brick as the primary material to celebrate the distinctly English garden tradition and establish a conversation with the existing brick façade of the Serpentine South Gallery, once a tea pavilion itself. Constructed from a rhythmic repetition of brick columns that transform the wall from opaque to permeable, the Pavilion becomes a metaphorical bridge between the geographies of Europe and the Americas.

LANZA atelier, Chairs for 4 Couples Dining Set, 2020. Photo: Fernando Ocaña.

LANZA atelier said: “It is an honour to be selected as the architects of the 25th Serpentine Pavilion, a milestone year for the commission. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to share our work with a wider public and to contribute to the Pavilion’s ongoing legacy of spatial experimentation and collective encounter. Set within a garden, an evocation of the natural world, the project takes the form of a serpentine wall, conceived as a device that both reveals and withholds: shaping movement, modulating rhythm, and framing thresholds of proximity, orientation, and pause.

Inspired by the figure of the serpent as a generative and protective force, we draw a parallel with England’s winding fruit walls, which are structures that temper climate, create shelter, and enable growth. From this idea emerges a pavilion built of simple clay brick, foregrounding vernacular craft and the elemental capacity of architecture to bring people together. The 2026 Pavilion proposes built forms that are permeable, shaped and held by a gentle geometry, and continually responsive to those who move through it.”

Serpentine Pavilion Architecture Designs

Bettina Korek, Chief Executive, Serpentine said: “For 25 years, the Serpentine Pavilion has been a leading global platform for architectural experimentation – first inviting internationally significant architects yet to build in London, and later championing emerging voices. It offers a rare brief: to test ambitious ideas in an open, accessible setting. Conceived as a structure that extends beyond its walls, the Pavilion connects architecture, landscape, and people. With LANZA atelier, we strengthen cultural exchange with Mexico and reaffirm the Pavilion as a free, civic space of connection, central to our summer and autumn programmes. We are deeply grateful to our partners and supporters for making the Pavilion possible.”

Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine said: “Over the last 10 years the Serpentine Pavilion has increasingly focussed on giving opportunities to younger architectural practices. We are excited to announce that Mexican architects LANZA atelier will design the 2026 Serpentine Pavilion. LANZA atelier’s architecture always involves a deep engagement with the local context, materials and lived experience. In their own words, they create contemporary spaces whose energy can last. Their spaces invite people to imagine a more connected, compassionate and creative future. As always, the Pavilion will be a content machine with lectures, film screenings and performances.

We will also remember Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) who gave us our motto that “there should be no end to experimentation”. As we mark the 25th Pavilion, we reflect on these origins. Since its inception in 2000, the Pavilion has acted as a catalyst for architects at pivotal moments in their careers. LANZA atelier’s Pavilion will mark the second time Mexican architects are appointed since Frida Escobedo in 2018. We are grateful to LANZA atelier for embracing this invitation, and we extend our sincere thanks to Sou Fujimoto for his generous guidance.”

Throughout the Summer and until October, the Serpentine Pavilion 2026 will become a platform for Serpentine’s live and events programme, providing encounters in music, film, theatre, dance, literature, philosophy, fashion and technology. Each year’s commission respond to the unique architecture of the Pavilion, inviting audiences to experience the activated space.

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 & Zaha Hadid Foundation Events

In 2026, Serpentine will collaborate with the Zaha Hadid Foundation to commemorate Zaha Hadid’s legacy and mark the 25th Serpentine Pavilion. A dedicated programme on architecture will take place at Serpentine South. As the architect of the inaugural Serpentine Pavilion in 2000, Hadid’s spirit of innovation has set the tone for what has since become one of the world’s most influential architectural commissions. This approach continues to shape not only the Pavilion series, but also Serpentine’s wider programme of exhibitions and live events.

The programme will aim to explore Hadid’s groundbreaking contributions to the field while connecting new and wider audiences with innovative architectural conversations. Bringing together leading architects, thinkers, and cultural practitioners, it will foster transnational and transgenerational architectural dialogue, inviting former Pavilion architects to explore questions at the forefront of architecture today, reflecting on Zaha Hadid’s career and the legacy of the Pavilion whilst looking ahead to the possibilities of the future.

This year’s Pavilion selection was made by Serpentine CEO Bettina Korek; Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist; Director of Construction and Special Projects Julie Burnell; Exhibitions Curator Chris Bayley; Exhibitions Curator Tamsin Hong; and Assistant Exhibitions Curator Liz Stumpf, together with advisor Sou Fujimoto.

Serpentine Pavilion 2026 building designed by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, LANZA atelier: aerial view © LANZA atelier, Courtesy Serpentine

LANZA atelier Monograph

Serpentine will publish LANZA atelier’s first monograph to accompany the Pavilion. Designed by Estudio Herrera, it will bring together new and insightful contributions from the fields of architecture, art and poetry. Generously illustrated in colour, it also features an extensive conversation between LANZA atelier and Serpentine’s Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and an essay by José Esparza Chong Cuy.

The Pavilion is supported by Goldman Sachs.

Serpentine Pavilion 2026
Serpentine South
6 June – 25 October 2026
Press View: Wednesday 3 June, 8.30am–12pm

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26th Serpentine Pavilion building in London images / information received 260126

Location: Kensington Gardens, London, W2 3XA, England, UK

Previously on e-architect:

5 Jul 2019