The Serpentine Galleries are a free contemporary art institution in Kensington Gardens, founded in 1970 and now operating across two sites: Serpentine South and Serpentine North. The South building began life as a tea room in 1934, while the North site opened in 2013 in a former 19th-century gunpowder store and was later extended by Zaha Hadid.
 
Serpentine South opened as a gallery in 1970 and was originally focused on young British artists. For its first three years it had no central heating, so it could only operate in summer; once heating was added, winter exhibitions became possible and the programme expanded internationally.
 
Its quite a humble building for such great works due to its original purpose as a simple team room.
 
Interesting fact..
Yoko Ono piece called “Grow Love with Me” was quietly sold at the Serpentine reception desk for £20: a bean in a tin that, as the beanshoot grew, revealed the word “love” on the bean itself. It was a rare, affordable contemporary art item in a high-end art world, showing how the gallery pushes boundaries.