Serpentine Gallery 21 – Counterspace
The 20th Serpentine Pavilion was designed by Counterspace, a Johannesburg-based studio led by Sumayya Vally—the youngest architect ever commissioned for the series. Inspired by places of gathering and belonging across London’s diasporic and cross-cultural communities, the Pavilion references both existing and erased community spaces, including mosques, bookshops, cultural venues, and civic centers.
Through a process of abstraction, layering, and splicing, the Pavilion’s forms reinterpret architectural elements from neighborhoods such as Brixton, Tower Hamlets, Edgware Road, and Peckham, translating them into a new spatial language. The resulting structure in Kensington Gardens is both a monument and a meeting place, confronting the city’s history of spatial erasure while celebrating the resilience of informal community networks.
