Serpentine Pavilion architecture talks series developed by Serpentine and the Zaha Hadid Foundation in London has introduced a new public program that will honor the legacy of Zaha Hadid and commemorate 25 years since the Pavilion’s founding. The first event will take place on October 16, 2025, within Marina Tabassum’s 2025 Pavilion A Capsule in Time, featuring a public conversation between former Pavilion architects Lina Ghotmeh and Sumayya Vally, joined by Aric Chen and Hans Ulrich Obrist. The series reflects Hadid’s philosophy that “there should be no end to experimentation,” a principle that defined her commission for the inaugural Pavilion in 2000. That temporary structure, a triangulated steel roof of angular planes, initiated what would become an influential platform for conceptual architecture. The program aims to engage architects, theorists, and cultural practitioners across generations in a focused dialogue on architecture’s cultural role. These conversations will be hosted within the Pavilion structure each year. The collaboration underlines the Serpentine’s commitment to architectural discourse that extends beyond utility and embraces architecture as an intellectual and public practice. Previous commissions have featured architects including Sou Fujimoto, Bjarke Ingels, Diébédo Francis Kéré, and Frida Escobedo. Tabassum’s Pavilion, on view until October 26, 2025, consists of four translucent wooden capsules with a kinetic component, aligned with the Serpentine South bell tower. This collaboration marks a decade since Hadid’s passing and reinforces the Pavilion as a spatial and discursive platform for global architectural experimentation. Full program details will follow in early 2026.
Serpentine and the Zaha Hadid Foundation have announced a new collaborative program of architectural talks launching in 2026. This initiative will commemorate 25 years of the Serpentine Pavilion commission and will pay tribute to Zaha Hadid’s experimental legacy. A series of public conversations will take place annually within the Pavilion structure, beginning with an inaugural event on October 16, 2025. The launch event will be held in Marina Tabassum’s 2025 Serpentine Pavilion, titled A Capsule in Time, which is currently installed at Serpentine South. It will feature a dialogue between former Pavilion architects Lina Ghotmeh, responsible for the 2023 commission, and Sumayya Vally, who led the 2021 project. They will be joined by Aric Chen, Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of Serpentine. The discussion is scheduled from 8:45 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., with a prompt start at 9:30 a.m.
The program takes direct inspiration from Zaha Hadid’s assertion that “there should be no end to experimentation.” Her design for the inaugural Pavilion in 2000 introduced a triangulated steel structure that redefined the typology of temporary architecture. Its angular geometry and spatial variation established a conceptual framework that continues to influence the Pavilion series and Serpentine’s broader curatorial direction.
According to Aric Chen, “Through her boundary-breaking life and work, Zaha changed the course of architecture, and her early and longstanding collaboration with the Serpentine played no small part in this. We’re thrilled and honored to start this collaboration with an institution she was so close to, and that so deeply shares her commitment to innovation and the public.”
Bettina Korek, CEO of Serpentine, and Hans Ulrich Obrist also emphasized this continuity, stating, “As we mark 25 years of the Pavilion, we return to its origins while creating space for new ideas. We are grateful to Aric Chen and the Zaha Hadid Foundation for celebrating her enduring legacy with us.”
The Serpentine Pavilion series, realized each year with technical advisors AECOM, has served as a platform for emerging international practices since 2000. The program has introduced UK audiences to the first built works of prominent architects, including Sou Fujimoto, Bjarke Ingels, Frida Escobedo, Diébédo Francis Kéré, and Sumayya Vally. The 2012 commission by Ai Weiwei and Herzog and de Meuron created a subterranean cork installation. In 2013, Sou Fujimoto’s transparent grid proposed a lattice terrain, while Bjarke Ingels’ 2016 project reinterpreted a wall as a flexible spatial zipper.
Marina Tabassum’s A Capsule in Time, currently on view until October 26, 2025, presents an elongated plan with four wooden capsule volumes connected around a central courtyard aligned with the Serpentine South bell tower. The use of translucent façades diffuses light within the interior, and one of the capsules features a kinetic element that allows the structure to change its configuration. Tabassum’s design foregrounds a material sensibility informed by climate, cultural continuity, and the spatial possibilities of light.
The forthcoming Pavilion talks series will invite past Pavilion architects and leading thinkers to reflect on key questions in architecture today, while engaging with the Pavilion’s role as both a built form and a medium for conceptual exploration. The full program schedule will be announced in early 2026.
