Pavilion's Propositions

This publication addresses the contemporary pavilion phenomenon and the often temporary and functionless architectural structures commissioned and exhibited by art institutions, among which are the Serpentine Pavilion in London, the Young Architects Program in New York, and the MPavilion in Melbourne. Despite this ubiquity and popular success, the contemporary pavilion has been inconsistently theorised and frequently disparaged. The authors reclaim the pavilion as an architectural topic, against those who would dismiss the potential of architecture's intersection with art. It also poses larger questions regarding the shifting relations between culture and the economy - changes that are shifting the planes on which architecture and art meet.