The Serpentine Gallery

About The Serpentine Gallery

A complex of two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, in the center of London. These are the Serpentine Gallery and the Serpentine Sackler Gallery

The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries set among the lawns of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park in central London, on either side of the Serpentine lake from which they take their name and five minutes' walk apart across the bridge. Serpentine South, long known simply as the Serpentine Gallery, opened in 1970 in a classical 1930s tea pavilion; Serpentine North occupies a restored gunpowder store of 1805 with a flowing, tent-roofed extension by Zaha Hadid that opened in 2013. Both spaces are too small for a permanent collection, so they present a rolling programme of temporary exhibitions by contemporary artists from around the world, lasting from a few weeks to more than a year, plus architecture, education and public programmes that together attract up to 1.2 million visitors a year. Admission to both is free. Their best-known project is the Serpentine Pavilion: every summer since 2000 an international architect who has not yet built in Britain is invited to design a temporary pavilion beside Serpentine South for events and a café, and the series, which has included Zaha Hadid and many leading names from the Arab world and Asia, has become a fixture for architecture lovers. The galleries make a relaxed cultural stop on a Hyde Park walk with Kensington Palace, the Diana Memorial Fountain and the Albert Memorial.

Where:

London, United Kingdom