Every year the Serpentine Gallery, located in the heart of Hyde Park in central London, invites an internationally renowned architect or designer to design for them a temporary pavilion in their grounds for the summer. In 2006, Rem Koolhaas hosted a 24-Hour Interview Marathon within his Pavilion, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary art.
With Hans Ulrich Obrist and featuring an introduction by Julia Peyton-Jones.
To coincide with the opening of the 2007 Serpentine Pavilion by Olafur Eliasson and Kjetil Thorsen, and the 2007 48-Hour Marathon (comprising two 24-hour sessions, where the second took place in Reykjavik in 2008) the Serpentine Gallery and Trolley Books launched the publication of Serpentine Gallery 24-hour Marathon: London.
Small and with a soft-cover in the format of a traditional 'flip-book', the book is a lively representation of 2007's now legendary 24-hour marathon of interviews, held with some of the greatest names in international contemporary culture, as part of the programme of the Serpentine Gallery 2006 Summer Pavilion. The interviews were hosted by the architect of the Pavilion, Rem Koolhaas, and the Serpentine Gallery's Co-director of Exhibitions and Programmes, Hans Ulrich Obrist. The 24-hour, non-stop interview event featured over 60 world-renowned artists, architects, writers, designers and theorists, among them David Adjaye, Damien Hirst, Gilbert and George, Hussein Chalayan and Doris Lessing, as well as the Director of the Serpentine Gallery, Julia Peyton-Jones.
From 6pm on Friday 28th June 2006 until 6pm on Saturday 29th, Koolhaas's Pavilion welcomed the public to join them in this landmark event, with many people staying for the entire duration. This 'flip-book' was conceived as a way of responding creatively to the marathon by producing a publication that was deliberately playful and tactile, giving a sense of speed, excitement and spontaneity of the Interview Marathon event. A highly visual and energetic book for its small size, it features over 150 colour and black and white illustrations and photographs interspersed with bite-sized text extracts from the interviews, and moves along in chronological order of the 24 hours. An introduction by Julia Peyton-Jones talks of the history of the Serpentine Gallery's Pavilion programme since it was initiated as a concept in 2000 - Koolhaas and Eliasson are the latest additions to an illustrious list of architects which include Zaha Hadid (2000), Daniel Libeskind (2001), Oscar Niemeyer (2003), and Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura with Cecil Balmond (2005).
Also published by Trolley: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2003: Oscar Niemeyer and Serpentine Gallery Pavillion 2005: Alvaro Siza, Eduardo Souta de Moura.
