Serpentine has announced a new collaboration with the Zaha Hadid Foundation to commemorate Zaha Hadid’s legacy and mark the 25th Serpentine Pavilion.
A dedicated programme of panel discussions and talks on architecture will take place within the Serpentine Pavilion. The series will launch with a special conversation featuring former Serpentine Pavilion architects Lina Ghotmeh (2023) and Sumayya Vally (2021), in dialogue with Aric Chen and Hans Ulrich Obrist on Thursday 16th October 2025 from 8.45am to 11am with a prompt start at 9.30am.
The collaboration takes inspiration from Zaha Hadid’s enduring ethos, “There should be no end to experimentation.” As the architect of the inaugural Serpentine Pavilion in 2000, Hadid’s spirit of innovation has set the tone for what has since become one of the world’s most influential architectural commissions. This approach continues to shape not only the Pavilion series, but also Serpentine’s wider programme of exhibitions and live events.
This new series of talks aims to connect new and wider audiences with innovative architectural conversations. Bringing together leading architects, thinkers, and cultural practitioners, the series will foster transnational and trans-generational architectural dialogue, inviting former Pavilion architects to explore questions at the forefront of architecture today, reflecting on Zaha Hadid’s career and the legacy of the Pavilion whilst looking ahead to the possibilities of the future.
Further details of the programme will be announced in early 2026.
Bettina Korek, CEO, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director of Serpentine, said:
“We often quote Zaha Hadid’s belief that there ‘should be no end to experimentation.’ Zaha’s spirit remains a vital inspiration for our programme. 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 collaboration launches with a Frieze Week panel, and we warmly thank Lina Ghotmeh and Sumayya Vally for joining this inaugural conversation.”
Aric Chen, Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, said:
“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 honoured to start this collaboration with an institution she was so close to, and that so deeply shares her commitment to innovation and the public.”
The groundbreaking commission, first launched in 2000 with Dame Zaha Hadid, has presented the first UK structures by some of the most significant names and emerging talent in international architecture.
2026 marks a decade since the passing of Zaha Hadid, who died in 2016 at the age of 65. At the time, there were more than 400 people working for Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA), which had worked on 950 projects in over 44 countries.
The Serpentine Pavilions are realised with the support of technical advisors AECOM. In recent years it has grown into a highly anticipated showcase for emerging talents, from Sumayya Vally, Counterspace (South Africa), the youngest architect to be commissioned, and Frida Escobedo (Mexico), to Diébédo Francis Kéré (Burkina Faso) and Bjarke Ingels (Denmark). In 2022, Black Chapel was designed by Theaster Gates (US), in 2023 À table was designed by Lina Ghotmeh- Architecture (France and Lebanon), in 2024 Archipelagic Void was designed by Minsuk Cho, Mass Studies (South Korea) and in 2025 A Capsule in Time was designed by Marina Tabassum (Bangladesh).
Each year’s commission responds to the unique location of the Pavilion, inviting audiences to experience the activated space through Serpentine’s experimental, interdisciplinary, community and education programmes.
Marina Tabassum’s Pavilion A Capsule in Time is on view at Serpentine South until 26th October 2025. Celebrated for her work that seeks to establish an architectural language that is contemporary while rooted and engaging with place, climate, context, culture and history, Marina Tabassum’s design for this year’s Pavilion resonates with Serpentine South and aims to prompt a dialogue between the permanent and the ephemeral nature of the commission.
The 2025 Pavilion is elongated in the north-south direction and features a central court that aligns with Serpentine South’s bell tower. Inspired by the tradition of park-going and arched garden canopies that filter soft daylight through green foliage, the sculptural quality of the Pavilion is comprised of four wooden capsule forms with a translucent façade that diffuses and dapples light when infiltrating the space. Marking the first structure by Tabassum to be built entirely from wood, it also employs light as a way to enhance the qualities of the space.
Emphasising the sensory and spiritual possibilities of architecture through scale, geometry and the interplay of light and shadow, Tabassum’s design also features a kinetic element where one of the capsule forms is able to move and connect, transforming the Pavilion into a new spatial configuration.
Serpentine and Zaha Hadid Foundation Architects’ Talk, Thursday 16th October at 8.45am – 11am,
At Serpentine South in Marina Tabassum’s Pavilion, A Capsule in Time Lina Ghotmeh – Architect of the 2023 Serpentine Pavilion; Sumayya Vally – Architect of the 2021 Serpentine Pavilion In conversation with: Aric Chen – Director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation and Hans Ulrich Obrist – Artistic Director, Serpentine RSVP to: press@serpentinegalleries.org
