Cate Blanchett, keen for career switch, will co-host Serpentine Summer Party 2025
'Supporting our cultural institutions and their power to illuminate the world at large and our place within it is of paramount importance,' Blanchett, fresh from her five-star stage turn in The Seagull at The Barbican, said in a statement. 'I'm honoured to co-chair the Serpentine party and its summer festivities where so many creative forms—architecture, performance, music, science and digital narratives—intersect. To come together around a pavilion created by Marina Tabassum, whose socially driven work particularly in her home country of Bangladesh to meet the challenges faced by Rohingya refugees, is an inspirational opportunity.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Telegraph
Serpentine Pavilion 2025: This armadillo-like structure is a surprising wonder
It is 25 years since the late Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid erected a white angular tent-like structure on a lawn beside the Serpentine Gallery, the first in an annual series of temporary pavilions in Kensington Gardens each designed to accommodate a summer-long programme of talks, parties, and events. Whether sleek or organic, elegant or madcap, these pleasure domes and places for debate are typically experimental and memorable, and, as well as marking the onset of the season, their unveiling elevates architecture to the thrust stage of national conversation. This year, it's the turn of the Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, who delivers a pleasing pavilion with a calming, naturally illuminated interior, subtly evocative of a place of worship. Tabassum's practice has won plaudits for a beautifully stripped-back brick mosque in Dhaka, seemingly capturing and pooling light as if it were a liquid, and a design for a movable bamboo house on stilts inspired by the ephemeral architecture of the Ganges delta. Her alertness to transience is a rare quality among architects, who often yearn for permanence. Consisting of four curving wooden-and-polycarbonate structures – a pair of half-domes that bookend two tube-like, semi-circular tunnels (reminiscent of those industrial polytunnels in which, in sunnier climes, fruit and veg is grown) – her modular (and, apparently, 'kinetic') pavilion, tritely titled A Capsule in Time, appears, from afar, like the rounded carapace of a gigantic woodlouse – or a nutshell. It bulges beside the red-brick politeness of Serpentine South (itself, a pavilion, built as a teahouse in the 1930s). Thanks to its brown exterior (up close, the grain of its glue-laminated timber struts is visible), it doesn't clash with its natural surroundings – unlike the swollen neon-orange form, studded with plastic toy bricks, of a second pavilion, to be unveiled next week, designed by Peter Cook in partnership with Lego. This sympathetic effect is enhanced by the presence, at its centre, of a slender gingko tree, aligned with the gallery's bell tower. Yet, Tabassum's pavilion also has a futuristic feel (its polycarbonate facade catches daylight in an unpleasant, unnatural fashion; how long till those panels become streaky?), and a defensive, armoured quality, despite its openness: those four principal elements give the impression that something tightly closed and intricately secured has been unlocked and stretched out, even sectioned in the manner of a technical exploded-view diagram. With proportions that call to mind a facility in a military complex (a hangar in an airfield, perhaps?), it looks as if, were the sirens suddenly to go off, it could be snapped shut at the press of a button, to protect people sheltering inside. Initially, the interior's fuselage-like volume made me think of the cigar-shaped cargo compartment of a Hercules military aircraft. Other pavilions have been more graceful. Yet, inside, Tabassum's aptitude for working with light – that most elusive and insubstantial of architectural materials – becomes evident. The angled panels of the faceted canopy are translucent and variously coloured, with bands of mushroom, buff, and – towards the top – a radiant celadon; thus, soft lights, reminiscent of stained glass, are visible above head height, while, at the building's 25ft-high zenith, transparent panels allow visitors to behold the fluctuations of the sky. At either end, the glowing half-domes provide some muted spectacle. As well as offering a striking backdrop for talks, these enclosing, quasi-religious forms, again irradiated by washed-out light, should protect passers-by during the damper stretches of a British summer.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- The Guardian
‘Like an expanding crepe-paper ornament': Serpentine unveils its first movable pavilion
Past pavilions have taken the form of inflatable balloons, teetering plastic pyramids and cork-lined lairs dug into the ground. We have seen a fibreglass cocoon perched on boulders, a wildflower garden enclosed by tar-daubed walls, and an assortment of undulating canopies, clad in polished steel and jagged slate. Now, to celebrate 25 years of building experimental structures on its front lawn, London's Serpentine gallery has unveiled its first pavilion that moves. 'Every time you think of an idea for the project,' says Marina Tabassum, the Bangladeshi architect behind this year's kinetic enclosure, 'you realise, 'Oh, that's already been done.'' This is the eternal dilemma for any designer selected for this prestigious annual commission: how to concoct a novel structure on a tight deadline that will enrapture park-goers, entertain corporate sponsors, and appeal to collectors, who are ultimately expected to acquire the thing – as well as, most importantly, provide a shelter for an overpriced coffee. To the Serpentine's quarter century of domed, cylindrical and cocoon-shaped cafes, Tabassum has now added a pill-shaped pavilion. 'A capsule in time' is how she describes her 55-metre long structure, formed of timber arches 28m high, clad in translucent brown panels, sliced open in places for entrances and views of a single gingko tree, poetically planted in line with the gallery's roof tower. The vaulted enclosure terminates in a momentous domed apse at either end, recalling tropical glasshouses and church naves, while the zigzag cladding gives it the look of an expanding crepe-paper ornament, is if it might fold itself away at any moment. None of these things were on Tabassum's mind. Instead, she cites shamiana, the ceremonial tents erected for festive gatherings in south Asia. Their 'beautiful quality of filtered light' is what she was keen to bring here. She had originally hoped to clad her structure with coarse lengths of jute, but a combination of fire safety regulations and British rain put paid to the sackcloth. It's a shame the fabric was ditched. The tinted brown plastic, fixed to a chunky steel frame between the big brown arches, calls less to mind a festive tent than the vaulted atrium of a 1970s office block – a chic one, nonetheless. The plastic does the job, though, keeping the rain out and filtering light through the variously tinted panels, but it has a corporate slickness at odds with Tabassum's work in Bangladesh. Her buildings there revel in their rough brickwork, raw concrete, and use of slender bamboo – and their ability to do a lot with minimal means. She has built emergency homes for the delta-dwellers of the Ganges that are essays in lightweight, modular elegance, using woven grass and bamboo. This five-month summer canopy feels hugely over-engineered and carbon intensive in comparison. It is a common curse of the annual commission, which often sees architects' ideas lost in translation by the Serpentine's speed and prefabrication-oriented engineers and builders, Aecom and Stage One. Plans for earth bricks result in blocks of wood; ideas for transparent panels bring sheets of CNC-milled plywood; dreams of handmade clay domes end up as prefab wooden cylinders. Any hope for true material experimentation is ultimately lost, which seems to undermine a central point of the commission. The dissonance this year is no more evident than in the kinetic gadgetry. As we speak, a 10-tonne chunk of Tabassum's capsule begins to move, at imperceptible speed, closing one of the gaps. 'I wanted to keep the sense of openness to the park,' she says. 'So it was very important to keep these cuts in the structure. But the brief also requires a covered space for 200 people, for events, so we had to be able to close it up.' She says the solution – an underground hydraulic machine – was one of the most expensive parts of the project, and it seems like a herculean effort to move the canopy just 1.4 metres. You might struggle to spot the difference, before and after the great manoeuvre. The surprisingly substantial nature of the pavilions is partly down to the fact that they are intended to live on, in the parks and gardens of their millionaire collectors. No future for Tabassum's capsule has yet been announced, but she has an idea in mind. 'If my wishes are of any value, I would like it to become a library,' she says. Hinting at its afterlife, she has equipped the space with shelves, and a selection of books that celebrate the richness of Bengali culture, literature and poetry, and the ecology of Bangladesh. In the meantime, she wants it to be a place for dialogue. 'This has been a year marked by intolerance, wars, countless deaths, protests and suppressions,' she says. 'I would like this to be a space where people can come together, forget their differences and just talk about humanity.' Could this be the first protest pavilion? It is a suitably calm space for taking the heat out of discussions, and the apses should provide great natural acoustics for lectures and events. But the sense of tranquility is thrown into sharp relief by what stands next door. Like a brash uncle in a loud comedy shirt muscling his way into the wedding photos, a second pavilion has been built just a few metres away, across the entrance path, doing its best to upstage Tabassum's restrained enclosure. It is the work of 88-year-old Sir Peter Cook, a co-founder of the radical 1960s group Archigram, former head of UCL's Bartlett school of architecture – and more recently consultant on desert fantasies for Saudi Arabia's regime. In an astonishingly ill-judged moved, the Serpentine has commissioned Cook to conjure a 'play pavilion' for its 25th anniversary, suggesting the work of a woman from the global south is not quite enough on its own. Looking like a crumpled cheeseburger, with a domed bun-like canopy hovering above a fluorescent orange cylinder, clad with what look like globular smears of ketchup and mustard, Cook's structure is a clumsy eyeful. It is 'the fool, the joker, the mischievous child,' he claims in an accompanying text, a reminder that 'we should never take ourselves too seriously.' One might have hoped for a bit more seriousness than this drunken napkin sketch. Sponsored by Lego, it contains a lumpen series of plastic brick towers, while a yellow plastic slide is bolted on to the side, as an invitation to 'become part of this jolly thing'. In its dad-dancing desperation to be fun, the sorry structure merely serves as a reminder that the park's nearby playgrounds are a good deal more inventive and playful than this washed-up sponsorship opportunity. Numerous other young architects could have conjured a more inventive play space, should the gallery have taken the idea seriously. Why choose Cook? Maybe they held a seance. The Serpentine cites the posthumous wishes of its first pavilion architect, Zaha Hadid, as the reason. Bettina Korek, chief executive, and Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director, said in a statement: 'Zaha Hadid long envisioned a collaboration between Serpentine and Peter Cook, whose radical design philosophy perfectly aligns with her belief that 'there should be no end to experimentation'. Now, that vision is becoming a reality.' But perhaps Cook's squashed Lego burger makes a fitting final bookend to this 25-year jamboree of pavilions, a tradition that seems to have had its day. It could follow in the footsteps of Zaha's angular marquee, which unexpectedly ended up in Flambards theme park in Cornwall, where it enjoyed a second life hosting children's birthday parties, until the place was shuttered last year. We can look forward to Cook's structure being unearthed in a McDonald's car park in years to come, the jaunty legacy of Archigram adorned with discarded Happy Meals. Marina Tabassum's Serpentine Pavilion is open from 6 June until 26 October; Peter Cook's play pavilion is open from 11 June until 10 August
Daily Mail
29-04-2025
- Daily Mail
Cate Blanchett, 55, stuns in a green three-piece suit as she leads stars at National Theatre after announcing plans to retire from acting
Cate Blanchett turned heads as she led the stars at the National Theatre 2025 Season Launch in London on Tuesday evening. The Oscar-winning actress, 55, who recently declared that she is to retire from acting, looked incredible in a satin green three-piece suit. The stunning ensemble featured tailored trousers, a longline blazer, and a plunging waistcoat. She teamed the stylish look with a pair of classic white trainers and pulled her golden locks into a low up-do. Earlier in the evening, the star appeared in high spirits as she was spotted arriving at the event before posing up a storm on the red carpet. Also at the event were the likes of Fay Ripley, Fiona Shaw, Olivia Williams, Stephen Mangan, Mark Gatiss and Rosalie Craig. It comes after Cate revealed her plans to retire from acting after treading the boards for over three decades. Earlier this month, the star hesitated about her job title during an interview with Radio Times, explaining: 'It's because I'm giving up [acting]. My family roll their eyes every time I say it, but I mean it. I am serious about giving up acting.' Cate insisted she had 'a lot of things I want to do with my life' other than appearing on screen. The Australian star, who recently starred in an adaptation of Chekov's The Seagull at London's Barbican, did not give a timeframe on her departure from the entertainment industry. But it is not the first time that she has threatened to quit her career despite her international acclaim. She told Vanity Fair in 2023 that she has often toyed with the idea of walking away from her acting work. She said: 'It's not occasional — it's continual. On a daily or weekly basis, for sure. 'It's a love affair, isn't it? So you do fall in and out of love with it, and you have to be seduced back into it.' Also at the event was Fay Ripley (left), Fiona Shaw (right), Olivia Williams, Stephen Mangan , Mark Gatiss and Rosalie Craig. Mark Gatiss and Rosalie Craig were all smiles together at the event as the embraced each other on the red carpet Despite her latest declaration, the Lord of the Rings star is set to feature in her first radio play on Radio 4 on Saturday in a 90-minute monologue titled The Fever. Written by Wallace Shawn, Blanchett will play an unnamed traveller who falls ill in a foreign country riven by civil war. The mother-of-four explained why she had chosen to embark on her first audio radio project. She told the Radio Times: 'I'm obsessed with the psychological space that is the interior of people's cars. 'Often the most profound and intense and memorable conversations that I have with my children are in the car.' 'That special space was where my 16-year-old encountered Desert Island Discs and now he's completely obsessed with it, and, because the school run is quite long, it's where I listen to long-form radio drama.' Cate has racked up thousands of rave reviews over the last 30 years after working tirelessly across dozens of projects in theatre, film and TV. Cate revealed her big plans in the April 19-25 issue of Radio Times A regular on the global awards circuit, Blanchett has received major prizes from all over the world, including two Oscars, three BAFTAs, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, an Order of Australia, and in France a Chevalier, for her contribution to the arts. Born in Melbourne, Cate started her movie career in Australia but quickly made an international breakthrough in 1998 with one of her first films, the historical drama Elizabeth. By the early 2000s, global audiences knew her from the blockbuster Lord of the Rings series. She later appeared in the Hobbit trilogy. She won great praise and a best supporting Oscar for playing Hollywood great Kate Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic The Aviator in 2005. In 2013, she won her first best actress Academy Award in the Woody Allen film Blue Jasmine.
