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For the first building in England by the great Californian celebrity architect, Frank Gehry, don鈥檛 expect a seductively glistening, curvaceous gem a la Bilbao Guggenheim.

This is the summer pavilion of the Serpentine Gallery in London鈥檚 Kensington Gardens, which will be opened to the eagerly waiting world next week, and it鈥檚 not particularly summery either.

What we鈥檝e been given instead is a gawky, hefty assembly of glass, timber and steel. Admittedly, those six large trapezoidal canopies that float at random angles high overhead do have a nonchalant, carefree appeal. But they are suspended from a massive clunking structure of timber beams and columns, also at chaotic angles.

The beams are a huge 1000mm x 1000mm square in section and self-evidently mask an inner core of structural steel. And not with any clever post-modernist irony either.

All this was revealed this morning at a press preview, which turned out to be quite a celebrity performance in itself. In attendance was a tightly packed melee of TV cameramen, photographers and notebook-weilding reporters, all herded along by a gaggle of gallery directors and PR managers.

It would have passed as an international premier performance of Hollywood鈥檚 latest blockbuster with all the big-screen stars in attendance. Not a minor, temporary work by an architect from the other side of town.

The chaos was ramped up by the whole event taking place in pouring rain. This was on the roof terrace of the Serpentine Gallery, where we were meant to look down and admire the new pavilion taking shape in front of us. But all that was visible most of the time was a forest of umbrellas, television cameras and huge shoulders of cameramen and reporters.

What we鈥檝e been given instead is a gawky, hefty assembly of glass, timber and steel.

No performance from the white-haired celeb himself, it has to be said. He spoke almost inaudibly, made several cryptic references to disparate influences and peppered these with droll, self-deprecatory remarks.

The disparate influences he revealed were garden parties (not much in evidence), timber structures (with steel cores?), a flock of butterflies (oh yes 鈥� the floating glass canopies) and a giant military catapult conceived by Leonardo da Vinci some 500 years ago.

As for the giant catapult, you鈥檝e got to take this as the workings of a great artistic mind. 鈥淚t was the first thing that came to mind," said Gehry. "You don鈥檛 know where an idea鈥檚 coming from. It鈥檚 intuitive.鈥�

Pressed a bit further on the matter, he switched momentarily to self-deprecatory mode: 鈥淧erhaps it鈥檚 a statement of regression of my own inadequacies.鈥�

Asked why there were no fish motifs in the pavilion, as in Kobe and Barcelona. Quick as a flash, he quipped: 鈥淭here鈥檚 always a fish lurking in the bushes somewhere.鈥�

And finally in reference to the non-stop rain, he said: 鈥淭o start with, we designed tarpaulins to catch the rain. They were eliminated to cut costs. Maybe we need to bring them back.鈥�

So even great celebrity descendents of Leonardo da Vinci are not beneath coming up with practical design proposals occasionally.