The Naomi Milgrom Foundation’s annual MPavilion architecture commission has received an extension and will appear twice more in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens in 2018 and 2019.
The MPavilion commission was initially launched in 2014 as a four-year project. No announcement was made about the future of the project when the fourth instalment, a design by Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten of Dutch practice OMA, was revealed in June. The Naomi Milgrom Foundation and its partners – the City of Melbourne, ANZ and Creative Victoria – have agreed to fund two more instalments.
Naomi Milgrom, founder of the eponymously named Naomi Milgrom Foundation, said, “When we started MPavilion in 2014, I could never have imagined how it would inspire and enthuse so many people. I am overwhelmed by the way MPavilion has become such an important part of Melbourne’s cultural life.”
The 2017 MPavilion, which will comprise an amphitheatre with a rotating bleacher, will be OMA’s first completed architectural project in Australia. The firm is also currently working on the new, $428.3-million, 23,000-square-metre Western Australian Museum with local practice Hassell as part of a consortium led by Brookfield Multiplex. The OMA-designed pavilion opens on 3 October and will close on 4 February 2018.
The 2017 MPavilion follows previous iterations designed by Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai (2016), Amanda Levete of AL_A (2015) and Sean Godsell of Sean Godsell Architects (2014). Each pavilion was gifted to the city and moved to a permanent location following its season in the Queen Victoria Gardens. Sean Godsell Architects’ pavilion occupies the rear of the Hellenic Museum, AL_A’s pavilion was relocated to a park in Docklands, and Studio Mumbai’s pavilion is being rebuilt at Melbourne Zoo.
More than 230,000 people have visited the pavilion in its various incarnations each year since 2014, said Melbourne’s lord mayor Robert Doyle.
“The interest and buzz that MPavilion creates in the Queen Victoria Gardens every season is infectious,” he said.
The first three MPavilions also hosted more than 1100 free events related to design, architecture, science and the arts. This year, for the first time, MPavilion conducted an open call for events and activities that engage with and creatively respond to OMA’s design. Submissions closed on 11 July.
