MPavilion 2019. Photo by John Gollings
MPavilion 2019, designed by Australia’s only Pritzker Architecture Prize recipient Glenn Murcutt AO, opened in the Queen Victoria Gardens, Melbourne.
Glenn Marcutt - Photo by Timothy Burgess
Internationally influential for his environmentally responsible designs with a distinctive Australian character, Murcutt’s MPavilion heralds a milestone in the architect’s fifty-year career as his first civic city design.
To celebrate and to give you a first look at Glenn’s serene and uniquely Australian MPavilion, we show you this stunning bird’s-eye video by Radar Kane and images by renowned architecture photographer John Gollings.
MPavilion 2019 draws from Glenn’s storied career and looks to the future as a climate-responsive and environmentally responsible public design for the whole community. The design was also influenced by a picnic under the wing of a light aircraft on a trip Glenn took to Mexico thirty years ago, resulting in an expansive all-white structure with a fabric roof, touched down lightly in the gardens. The design brings to mind Glenn’s learned Indigenous knowledge to “Touch the earth lightly” with his architecture.
MPavilion 2019. Photo by John Gollings
Naomi Milgrom AO, chair of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, who commissioned Glenn Murcutt to design MPavilion 2019, said: “Glenn’s fifty-year practice has inspired a new movement in thinking about climate-responsive design. His MPavilion refines the Australian characteristics we’ve all come to love about his buildings, and provokes a conversation about how Australian design can lead a growing international conversation about the future of cities.”
MPavilion 2019. Photo by John Gollings
Glenn Marcutt said about his design: “I felt a crisp white building that at night could be lit from within its roof—like a lantern in the Queen Victoria Gardens, giving the pavilion a feeling of lightness—would sit comfortably in the location. Having the pavilion face north, open towards the river, I could work with good climatic conditions. This also means that from within the MPavilion one can view the gardens to the river and the city.”
MPavilion 2019. Photo by John Gollings
MPavilion 2019 was brought to fruition by Glenn Murcutt AO with structural engineers AECOM, specialist tensile roof fabric advisor Temple Architecture, builders Kane Constructions, building surveyors Gardner Group, lighting designers Bluebottle in collaboration with JSB Lighting, and visual identity by Studio Ongarato.
MPavilion 2019. Photo by John Gollings
MPavilion 2019. Photo by John Gollings
MPavilion 2019. Photo by John Gollings
Watch Glenn Marcutt speak about his MPavilion commission:
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