Tents, bandstands, displays, places for sitting, listening, seeing and being seen…Pavilions have myriad forms and as many functions. For architects and designers, they offer unique opportunities to experiment with form, construction, material, structure, surface and texture, often as prototypes for larger buildings or as purely artistic pursuits. A pavilion’s particular location also offers rich possibilities for interaction with the landscapes, streetscapes and peoplescapes around it. Pavilions can be temples to digital interaction or provide oases of surreal calm and isolation.

This is a selection of the best examples produced in recent years. From the cutting- edge forms of Sou Fujimoto to Zaha Hadid’s Chanel pavilion, from small structures created entirely out of farm waste to a mirrored carapace conceived by Olafur Eliasson, each pavilion featured provides a lesson in the extreme possibilities of built form and demonstrates that many of the biggest ideas in architecture start small.