Annual summer commission goes to Japanese architect behind New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York

The Serpentine Gallery’s 2009 pavilion is to be designed by SANAA, the Japanese firm behind the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.

SANAA, led by Japanese architects Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa, was set up in 1995. Their New York museum is the firm’s most high-profile work to date, but it has also designed a Dior store in Tokyo and a school in Essen, Germany.

The pair will now follow in the footsteps of architects such as Oscar Niemeyer, Daniel Libeskind and Zaha Hadid in designing a temporary pavilion for the Serpentine. Each year, the gallery invites an architect who has never built in England before to design a temporary pavilion in Hyde Park. Last year, Frank Gehry designed a striking glass and timber structure for the gallery.

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