A Second Life for SelgasCano's Serpentine Pavilion

Erected as a collaboration between Second Home and The Natural History Museums of Los Angeles County, of which the tar pits are a part of, the Second Home Serpentine Pavilion, as it's being called, is on display until November 24, 2019. If the name Second Home rings a bell, it is because the UK co-working company is a recurring client for Spanish architects José Selgas and Lucía Cano. Not long after their Serpentine Pavilion, the architects completed Second Home Holland Park in London, their fifth collaboration with Second Home. Later this year, Second Home and SelgasCano will complete what looks to be their most ambitious project: Second Home Hollywood, a village-like cluster of workspaces capped by yellow roofs and sinuously interlocking with palm trees.

The Second Home Serpentine Pavilion's double-skinned iridescent structure readies people for the eventual insertion of their colorful co-working spaces into the city, while at the same time it invites people to take selfies both outside and inside the colorful construction. In gray London the pavilion was an alien presence, but in sunny LA it is right at home. People are free to visit and wander through the pavilion between now and the end of November, though it will also be the setting for special events, such as a conversation between filmmaker David Lynch and the Serpentine Gallery's Hans Ulrich Obrist. Then it will be gone and Zumthor's long-in-the-works design for LACMA will, if all goes to plan, start construction next to the tar pits — undulating like the designs of SelgasCano, but not nearly as colorful.