As a north Londoner, I know exactly how many times I’ve visited the Dulwich Picture Gallery: three. The first was to attend the opening reception of a temporary pavilion designed by the young practice IF_DO, which was part of the London Festival of Architecture in 2017. It was a strikingly large structure, but it felt light thanks to its crisscrossing timber beams and mirrored panels that played clever tricks with views of the surrounding landscape and the gallery’s brick façade.

I went back two years later for the next pavilion in the series, this one by the then-emerging designer Yinka Ilori, working with Pricegore. This was a different beast altogether. It was bigger, brighter and heavier, with an elevated walkway wrapped in colourful batons inspired by Lagos textiles. My young son loved it, spending a whole afternoon racing up, down and around the structure. It was playful and inviting, which is an aspect that the gallery clearly values for its audience.



Fast forward six years and a ‘pavilion’ has returned to Dulwich, this time as a permanent fixture. The ArtPlay Pavilion is the creation of Carmody Groarke, a studio appropriately known for their temporary projects, including the Filling Station at King’s Cross and the skeletal “big box” that currently shelters Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Hill House. Their new box in Dulwich represents a refined presence in the landscape, with grey exterior walls, oversized circular windows and slim metal canopies that project out from the roof. It has quickly become a gathering spot for high-end buggies and prams (perfectly colour-coordinated, of course), belonging to the space’s primary audience: parents and their under-eights. The whole thing feels tasteful and carefully considered.

Inside, however, is a different story. Upon entering, a dreamlike world unfolds, designed by artists Sarah Marsh and Stephanie Jefferies of HoLD Collective. Where the exterior is almost austere, the interior is a fantastical landscape, with soft furnishings, cloud and trumpet motifs on the walls, slides and a bridge inspired by the Canaletto painting hanging in the neighbouring gallery. It’s a multisensory space meant to spark creativity, though it is easily the poshest soft play I’ve ever encountered. I found myself nervously watching the children explore the space, worrying about sticky fingers that might brush a little too close to the exquisite embroidery by the duo behind this immersive work.




Sitting later in the newly extended family café, overlooking the just-opened Sculpture Garden, I found myself appreciating the Dulwich Picture Gallery’s investment in its estate. The pavilion’s Douglas fir frame is low-carbon but designed to last, not vanish at the end of a single season. Its high-quality build and beautiful interior will no doubt become well-loved and well-used over time. And, crucially, the interior is flexible enough to be reconfigured as needs change, representing a kind of future-proofing that seems rare in a lot of the proscribed spaces found in cultural architecture.




This is a striking contrast to a similar architectural sojourn this summer: a trip to visit the Serpentine Pavilion(s) in central London. Marina Tabassum’s translucent shell is a dramatic spectacle, perfect for drawing summer crowds, but it felt strangely empty, with a primary focus of hosting cocktail receptions. Despite the fact that the Serpentine Pavilions only hold a temporary residency in Hyde Park, the gallery is very good at finding new homes for its six-month experiments. Unfortunately, they often disappear into private collections, cutting off public access. This year, the pavilion was joined by a temporary play structure in the form of a bright orange LEGO®-lined pod, topped with a geodesic dome, designed by Archigram founder Peter Cook (00277). It was fun, magnetic even, and covered with children throughout its opening hours. It was, however, much flimsier than its neighbour and dismantled after only two months. Whether it will have a second life or be scrapped is unclear.



All of which raises the question: have we moved beyond the age of the temporary pavilion? They certainly have the power to transform a cultural venue into a ‘destination’ for the period that they exist but their social impact appears to be more limited in an age of limitless pop-up shops and restaurants. The Serpentine Pavilion once felt radical thanks to deconstructivist structures, inflatable canopies and fake boulders hovering in the landscape. They would offer us a taste of what architecture could be but now we seem limited to tasteful sun shades for the consumption of tea and cake.

The ArtPlay Pavilion seems to point us in a new direction where lightweight architecture is less about one-off spectacle and more about building lasting cultural infrastructure. Dulwich and its design team have created something that is both loose-fit and long-life, a space that will continue to evolve and delight without the wastefulness of building and dismantling each season. It’s a model that balances environmental responsibility, community benefit and design ambition. Perhaps this is a challenge to other galleries: to fundraise not just for the next summer crowd-pleaser, but for the kind of space that will still be welcoming visitors, children included, for many years to come.