Oare Pavilion

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| name = Oare Pavilion

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| alternate_names = Oare Tea House Pavilion

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| building_type = Summer house

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| opened_date = 2003

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| owner = Henry Keswick

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| developer = I. M. Pei

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The Oare Pavilion or Oare Tea House Pavilion is a summer house designed by I. M. Pei for the businessman Henry Keswick and his wife Tessa Keswick at Oare House in Oare, Wiltshire. It was completed in 2003 and is Pei's only building in the United Kingdom.{{cite news|url=http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/towns/marlboroughheadlines/5001279.Pavilion_at_Oare_wins_award/|title=Pavilion at Oare wins award|date=11 February 2010|author=Nigel Kerton|work=Gazette & Herald|access-date=19 September 2017}}{{cite book|author=Philip Jodidio|title=Architecture D'aujourd'hui|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kl9Shbs2S9cC|year=2004|publisher=Taschen|isbn=978-3-8228-2935-6|page=16}} The pavilion was the recipient of an award from the Georgian Society for a new building in a Georgian context.{{cite book|title=Country Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kWEoAQAAIAAJ|year=2005|publisher=Country Life, Limited|page=51}}

Pei was designing the Suzhou Museum in China at the time of his commission by the Keswicks for the Oare Pavilion. Keswick's ancestors had also been acquainted with Pei's father, a banker.{{cite news|url=https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/i-m-pei-a-life-in-architecture/5213760.article|title=I M Pei: A life in architecture|date=10 February 2010|work=Architects Journal|access-date=19 September 2017}} The Keswicks wished for an "airy garden pavilion for family activities and guests" that would provide a focal point in the landscape surrounding Oare House.

Pei subsequently received the RIBA Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2010.{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/wiltshire/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8506000/8506716.stm|title=Summer house architect wins top award|date=10 February 2010|work=BBC News|access-date=19 September 2017}} In a 2010 profile of Pei written by Paula Deitz for the Architects Journal, described the Oare Pavilion in the context of its surrounding landscape as "In lieu of an 18th-century folly, the Oare Pavilion is updated 21st-century chinoiserie, a raised octagonal glass structure with a two-tiered, pagoda-style roof on a white concrete foundation...". Deitz sees the pavilion as a "sister to the performance pavilion in the lotus pond at the Suzhou Museum. And, like the museum, light filters through thin wooden slats on the interior of the slanted glass walls" and concludes that the Oare Pavilion is "...one of his best – a fulfilment of a lifetime aesthetic".

The pavilion featured in the 2008 book Follies of Europe: Architectural Extravaganzas where it was described as possessing "proud confidence and advanced technical capabilities".{{cite book|title=Follies of Europe: Architectural Extravaganzas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nsRJAQAAIAAJ|year=2008|publisher=Garden Art Press|isbn=978-1-870673-56-3|page=243}} It is visible from the North Wessex Downs.{{cite book|author=Steve Davison|title=Walking in the North Wessex Downs|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NsbCCQAAQBAJ|date=1 June 2015|publisher=Cicerone Press|isbn=978-1-78362-212-2|page=172}} It is also described by Julian Orbach is his revised Wiltshire in the Pevsner Buildings of England series, published in 2021. Orbach describes the "extraordinary" structure as a "pagoda in glass", and notes its "elegant geometry".{{cite book|first1=Julian|last1=Orbach|first2=Nikolaus|last2=Pevsner|first3=Cherry|last3=Bridget|author2-link=Nikolaus Pevsner|author3-link=Bridget Cherry|title=Wiltshire|series=Buildings of England|url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/1255836347|year=2021|location=New Haven, US and London|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=978-0-300-25120-3|page=496}}

Photographs of the pavilion by Morley von Sternberg are in the collection of the British Architectural Library.{{cite web|title=Oare House Pavilion, Oare, near Pewsey, Wiltshire|url=https://www.architecture.com/image-library/ribapix/image-information/poster/oare-house-pavilion-oare-near-pewsey-wiltshire/posterid/RIBA69317.html|work=Royal Institute of British Architects|access-date=17 September 2017}} Von Sternberg described the pavilion as "...geometrically formal, but is in fact an incredibly relaxing place to be" in a 2014 interview.{{cite web|title=Photographer Morley von Sternberg loves IM Pei's obsessions with the platonic geometries of the triangle...|url=https://www.ribaj.com/culture/doha-museum-of-islamic-art|work=RIBA Journal|access-date=17 September 2017}}

The cloakrooms, kitchen, and furniture in the pavilion was designed by John Stefanidis.{{cite web|title=Oare House Pavilion|url=http://johnstefanidis.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/architecture-oare-pavilion-in-deepest.html|work=John Stefanidis|access-date=17 September 2017}}