The Serpentine Sackler Gallery gives new life to the Magazine, a former 1805 gunpowder store, located five minutes walk from the Serpentine Gallery on the north side of the Serpentine Bridge.
With 900 square metres of new gallery, restaurant and social space, the Serpentine’s second space in Kensington Gardens will be a new cultural destination in the heart of London. the new Gallery is named after Dr Mortimer and Dame Theresa Sackler, whose Foundation has made the project possible through the largest single gift received by the Serpentine Gallery in its 43-year history.
In 2010 the Serpentine Gallery won the tender from the Royal Parks to bring the Grade Ii* listed building into public use for the first time in its 208-year history. the Serpentine Gallery has restored the building to an excellent standard, in partnership with the Royal Parks, renovating and extending it to designs by Zaha Hadid.
A light and transparent extension complements rather than competes with the neo-classical architecture of the original building. It is the Zaha Hadid Architects’ first permanent structure in central London and continues a relationship between the Gallery and the architect, which began with the inaugural Serpentine Gallery Pavilion Commission in 2000.
The landscape around the new building will be designed and planted by the world-renowned landscape artist Arabella Lennox-Boyd. Each story is timed to last as long as it takes to walk from the Serpentine Gallery to the Serpentine Sackler Gallery. the Serpentine’s expanded presence in Kensington Gardens will be illustrated by a specially commissioned map by the artist Michael Craig-Martin.
Responding to its unique location in the Royal Park of Kensington Gardens, an expanded programme of eight exhibitions will now follow the seasons with different shows in each gallery four times a year.
The seasonal theme carries through to the wider programme with the Pavilion commission signalling the start of London’s summer and the multidisciplinary Marathon, a fixture of Frieze week in the autumn. the Serpentine’s programme of outdoor sculpture with the Royal Parks continues with Fischli/Weiss’s monumental Rock on Top of Another Rock, which remains in place until March 2014.
