Viewing Minsuk Cho’s imaginative Serpentine Pavilion of five timber islands

Minsuk Cho noticed something when looking at the past 22 pavilions put up at the Serpentine – they tend to be realized as a single central structure on the Serpentine South lawn. Cho decided to do it differently: the centre becomes a void, riffing on the Korean madang, or central courtyard space. Around this open space, Cho has constructed five unique timber ‘islands’ each conceived as a ‘content machine’ housing collaborations with other artists, researchers and creatives.

One structure titled the ‘Gallery’ is home to a six-channel sound installation, by musician and composer Jang Young-Gyu, while the largest structure, the ‘Auditorium’, is an area for public gathering, performances and talks, with built-in benches; there’s also a ‘Play Tower’s for antics on brightly coloured nets, and a tea house – a nod to the Serpentine South’s previous life as a tea house before it became an art gallery in 1970. Our personal favourite, though, is the ‘Library of Unread Books’, an installation by artist Heman Chong and archivist Renée Staal. This ‘living’ reference library consists of donated unread books to form a pool of common knowledge.