The Mexican architecture studio will unveil its design for the pavilion on the 6th June.
Serpentine has recently announced that the architecture studio LANZA atelier, founded by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, has been selected to design the 2026 Pavilion. It will be titled ‘a serpentine’.
As the Pavilion reaches its 25th edition, Serpentine will celebrate this landmark anniversary through a special partnership with the Zaha Hadid Foundation.
Throughout its history, the Serpentine pavilion offers a showcase for emerging talents and consistently evolving as a participatory public and artistic platform for Serpentine’s experimental, interdisciplinary, community and education programmes.
LANZA atelier, founded in 2015 by Isabel Abascal and Alessandro Arienzo, is a Mexico City-based architecture studio. Their collaborative practice is rooted in the everyday and the informal, attentive to how technology, craft, and spatial intelligence emerge in unexpected conditions. Their work locates beauty in use, assembly, and encounter, proposing ways of building that foreground dialogue and collective experience.
Speaking of the news, LANZA atelier said: “It is an honour to be selected as the architects of the 25th Serpentine Pavilion, a milestone year for the commission. We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to share our work with a wider public and to contribute to the Pavilion’s ongoing legacy of spatial experimentation and collective encounter. Set within a garden, an evocation of the natural world, the project takes the form of a serpentine wall, conceived as a device that both reveals and withholds: shaping movement, modulating rhythm, and framing thresholds of proximity, orientation, and pause.”
For this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, LANZA atelier took its inspiration from the English architecture feature known as a serpentine or crinkle-crankle wall which forms one side of the pavilion. This type of brick wall, composed of alternating curves, originated in ancient Egypt and was later introduced to England by Dutch engineers. Its curvilinear form provides stability through lateral support, meaning the one-brick-wide serpentine wall requires fewer bricks than a straight wall. The eponymous feature also subtly nods to the nearby Serpentine lake, named for its gentle curvature, evoking the form of a serpent.
Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, Serpentine said: “Over the last 10 years the Serpentine Pavilion has increasingly focussed on giving opportunities to younger architectural practices. We are excited to announce that Mexican architects LANZA atelier will design the 2026 Serpentine Pavilion. LANZA atelier’s architecture always involves a deep engagement with the local context, materials and lived experience. In their own words, they create contemporary spaces whose energy can last. Their spaces invite people to imagine a more connected, compassionate and creative future. As always, the Pavillion will be a content machine with lectures, film screenings and performances. We will also remember Zaha Hadid (1950-2016) who gave us our motto that “there should be no end to experimentation”. As we mark the 25th Pavilion, we reflect on these origins. Since its inception in 2000, the Pavilion has acted as a catalyst for architects at pivotal moments in their careers. LANZA atelier’s Pavilion will mark the second time Mexican architects are appointed since Frida Escobedo in 2018. We are grateful to LANZA atelier for embracing this invitation, and we extend our sincere thanks to Sou Fujimoto for his generous guidance.”
In 2026, Serpentine will collaborate with the Zaha Hadid Foundation to commemorate Zaha Hadid’s legacy and mark the 25th Serpentine Pavilion. A dedicated programme on architecture will take place at Serpentine South. 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.
The programme will aim to explore Hadid’s groundbreaking contributions to the field while connecting new and wider audiences with innovative architectural conversations. Bringing together leading architects, thinkers, and cultural practitioners, it will foster transnational and transgenerational 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.
To find out more visit: https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/