Architecture began with natural elements, unmodified. This original architecture gradually gave way to structures crafted with simple methods, still unassuming. It would thus be right to say that natural landscape and architecture have together formed an integrated environment from the start, based on a strong continuity.

In Ishigami’s words, the architect looks for ways of obtaining a new type of architecture by combining time-honored local construction methods and materials with contemporary building techniques and technologies.

For his Serpentine, Ishigami presents a floating roof, a plate of slate that rises from the ground, very thin pillars holding it up to form a shelter. Rainwater gently descends along the stones that form it. The pavilion is a huge canopy reminiscent of a rocky Alpine landscape.

The contrast between the heavy presence of a stone roof and the feeling of lightness results in a new extension of the landscape. Weighty and weightless, random and deliberate, natural and artificial, natural and architectural: by mixing and fusing these and other attributes thought of as opposites, a whole new environment is achieved.