Serpentine Sackler Gallery in London by Zaha Hadid

Today, the extension to the Serpentine Sackler Gallery will be ceremoniously opened to the public in Kensington Gardens. The historic building from 1805, which originally served as a gunpowder store, is just a five-minute walk from the famous Serpentine Gallery, which won a competition in 2010 for the new use of the gunpowder factory. A year later, Zaha Hadid's project for the expansion was introduced, and today it will be accessible to the public for the first time in its two-hundred-year history. The Serpentine Sackler Gallery will offer an additional 900m² of exhibition spaces, a restaurant, and social areas.
For a number of large projects by British architect Zaha Hadid, it is unclear why administrative buildings should undulate or why apartment block walls should collapse, but for the expansion of the London gallery, a light and flowing form seems most appropriate. Why should another strict and rational object be added to the classical order at a time when everyone in the museum spends far more time in the café and the gift shop? The white form, reminiscent of Marilyn Monroe's lifted skirt from the film The Seven Year Itch, perfectly fits its surroundings and intended function - the museum bar The Magazine.

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