Open for just three months during the summer, the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, located in London’s Kensington Gardens, could be a mere blip on the architecture radar. Yet it manages to garner the attention usually reserved for major projects. One can see why. Since its inception four years ago, the Pavilion has showcased work by some of the world’s most heralded architects for its annual architectural commission—Zaha Hadid (2000), Daniel Libeskind (2001), and Toyo Ito (2002). This year’s selection for the project, Oscar Niemeyer, Hon. AIA, is no exception. Ninety-five years old and busy at work, the Pritzker Prize winner continues to engage and excite the public with his designs. Despite being one of Niemeyer’s smallest works, the structure, made of concrete, steel, and aluminum, still incorporates the architect’s signature style. The Pavilion’s location in a royal park limited the size of the project’s footprint to 984 square feet (300 square meters), but the space had to be large enough to accommodate events that throughout the course of the summer attract roughly 150,000 visitors. To allow for more room within the footprint, Niemeyer sank the auditorium into the ground while placing a cafe (with furniture designed by the architect) on the upper level. A glass wall affords transparency and enlarges the space by opening up the pavilion to the park. Sensuous curves and shocks of color recall other examples of Niemeyer’s work—in particular, the Niteroi Museum of Contemporary Art (1991) in Brazil, with its striking, red entry ramp. Remarkably, the Serpentine’s annual miniature masterpieces are completed within six months of the architect’s commission. Serpentine Gallery director Julia Peyton-Jones explains that everyone involved uses “the shortage of time to their advantage.” Moreover, she describes the process of working with Niemeyer as “extremely collaborative” and the project as “one of the most enjoyable” that she has ever participated in. Collaboration seems to be the key word—Jones stresses that the annual pavilion would not be possible without a multiplicity of sponsors, incluing Eurex, Arup, and Time Out. The financial and media support for the architectural pavilion suggests that London has wholeheartedly embraced the program as a part of its urban agenda. In mid-September, when the structure is dismantled, it will be sold to recoup part of the its cost, but it is hoped that it will remain somewhere in the United Kingdom. While Niemeyer has completed more than 500 projects worldwide, the Serpentine Pavilion is, in fact, his first project to grace the U.K.