He wowed us with the Tate Modern Sun. Now Olafur Eliasson has helped to create a clever helter-skelter at the Serpentine Gallery in London. Like past Serpentine Pavilions the steel frame structure, clad in plywood panels, delivers the requisite killer looks. The gallery has already dubbed its giant, tilted cone bound in a spiralling ramp the spinning top, though it’s as much like a flying saucer crash-landed from a 1950s B-movie: ominous, like a Trojan horse, and melancholically gloomy (in a very northern latitude, kind-of-optimistic sort of way). The pavilion opens in Kensington Gardens on Friday, August 24.

Read full article (The Times, August 21, 2007)

Go to website Serpentine Gallery
Go to website Olafur Eliasson
Go to website architect Kjetil Thorsen (Snøhetta, Norway)
See images of the work in progress on Flickr.com

Official statistics show that Beijing has 140 museums, an average of 1 per 100.000 residents. “At least 40 museums have opened to public in Beijing over the past decade, a fast growing period compared with the fact that 100 museums were established from 1949″ says Shu Xiaofeng, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Administration of Cultural Heritage.

Read full article (Chinadaily, August 17, 2007)