Carme Pinós: MPavilion 2018

MPavilion 2018, designed by Barcelona-based architect and educator Carme Pinós of Estudio Carme Pinós, opened today in the Queen Victoria Gardens. Internationally influential for her community-focused philosophy of design, Carme Pinós’s MPavilion marks the first public work in Australia by a female Spanish architect. Initiated and commissioned by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation with support from the City of Melbourne, Victorian State Government through Creative Victoria and ANZ, MPavilion 2018 is the fifth in an ongoing series of annual architect-designed summer pavilions for Melbourne. The pavilion this year celebrates building communities and women in leadership, and heralds a free four-month program of events from October 9, 2018 to February 3, 2019, featuring over 500 Australian and international guests and collaborators.

MPavilion 2018 was officially opened by MPavilion founder Naomi Milgrom AO, architect Carme Pinós of Estudio Carme Pinós and the City of Melbourne’s Councillor Rohan Leppert. The opening event was commemorated with a live performance from Yorta Yorta soprano Deborah Cheetham AO and Dhungala Children’s Choir.

Naomi Milgrom AO, chair of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, who commissioned Carme Pinós to design MPavilion 2018, said: “Working with Carme to bring her inspiring MPavilion design to life has been an absolute pleasure. Carme’s vision opens Australia to conversations about how to make our cities more inclusive through design. It’s a privilege to commission a work with such international and future-thinking insight.”

Lord Mayor of the City of Melbourne Sally Capp, said: "For the past four years, MPavilion has celebrated and showcased the best of contemporary Australian and international architecture right in the heart of our city, winning eight national and international awards.  The annual MPavilion program has been a major success, featuring collaborations between more than 1,000 designers, architects, cultural and educational institutions. The City of Melbourne is proud MPavilion continues to call Melbourne home and I’m excited to visit the gardens and see this year’s pavilion.”

Carme Pinós of Estudio Carme Pinós commented: “In designing this year’s MPavilion, I wanted firstly to make a space for the people of Melbourne to feel connected—to each other, to the city they live in, and to nature. We are all part of the world, and architecture can tell that story and provide a place for us to experience life together. I hope the MPavilion becomes a flow of knowledge and creativity this summer.” 

In true Pinós form, the sculptural design incorporates majestic wings inspired by origami that, rather than make a heroic statement, open the MPavilion to the city, encouraging movement, meetings and new experiences. The geometric configuration assembled in two distinct halves intersect with each other to form the pavilion’s roof. An altered topography forms three mounds that incorporate seating, allowing a multitude of community-focused activities to ‘unfold’ during the MPavilion 2018/19 season of events. Designed for MPavilion and to celebrate the opening, Carme has also released a special commissioned stool made in Spain by hand-tinted birch plywood.

Carme Pinós opens the MPavilion 2018 program on Tuesday, October 9, speaking at The land on which we stand, presented by Melbourne Festival. Carme will that evening also give an opening lecture at the University of Melbourne’s Melbourne School of Design, and will further speak at opening week events at MPavilion, including an in-conversation with Parlour on Wednesday 10 October and a discussion with Naomi Milgrom AO and ABC journalist Virginia Trioli on Thursday, October 11.

The MPavilion 2018 program features hundreds of free public events through MTalks, MMeets, MMusic, MKids and MProjects event series, as well as MPavilion’s own curated MRelay series of tag-team talks, which this year focus on fostering inclusive and equitable cities. This year, MPavilion has greatly expanded its Indigenous architecture forum series BLAKitecture, initiated in 2017 and curated by MPavilion’s program consultant Sarah Lynn Rees. The program also offers MPavilion’s largest ever number of events developed in direct engagement with the public, resulting via an open call-out for expressions of interest in July.

New in 2018 is MPavilion’s Writer in Residence program, which welcomes recipient Maddee Clark, a Yugambeh writer, editor and curator who will investigate the intersections between architecture and the written word. MPavilion’s 2018 Artist in Residence is award-winning Melbourne artist Esther Stewart, who will create an interactive installation at MPavilion to be enjoyed over summer. Esther has also designed and produced a bespoke uniform for the MPavilion kiosk.

Further collaborators to the MPavilion 2018 program include celebrated London’s former director of Tate museums Sir Nicholas Serota CH, UK design sensations Fixperts, NY’s Hyphen Labs, Bakehouse Studios, Melbourne Theatre Company, Science Gallery Melbourne, Chunky Move, Melbourne Music Week, Multicultural Arts Victoria, RMIT University, SensiLab at Monash University, Heide Museum of Contemporary Art, Westside Circus, Liquid Architecture, Melbourne Recital Centre, and more, with new additions to the season to come.

MPavilion is supported by principal partners City of Melbourne, the Victorian State Government through Creative Victoria, and ANZ. It was brought to fruition by Estudio Carme Pinós with the support of Melbourne based architects Zilka Studios; builders Kane Constructions and ACE Contractors; building surveyors Gardner Group, and landscape architects Tract, who won at the 2018 VIC Landscape Architecture Awards for their work on MPavilion 2017; lighting designer Ben Cobham of bluebottle; along with Coleby Consulting, Otway Precast and Britton Timbers International.

MPavilion 2018 is designed as both a temporary summer pavilion and an enduring architectural creation. At the end of each season, MPavilion is gifted to the people of Victoria and moved to a permanent new home to be engaged by the community in perpetuity, creating an ongoing legacy in Melbourne’s increasingly sophisticated architectural landscape.

Key dates and useful links:

MPavilion 2018 is open free to the public from Monday, October 9, 2018 until Sunday, February 3, 2019

Program details and updates can be viewed at www.mpavilion.org 


About MPavilion
MPavilion is Australia’s leading architectural commission and design event conceived and created by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. Every year one new temporary pavilion, designed by a leading international architect, is erected in Melbourne’s historic Queen Victoria Gardens. From October through February, the MPavilion becomes a design and cultural laboratory, and home to a series of talks, workshops, performances and installations.

At the end of each season the MPavilion is then gifted by the Foundation to the City of Melbourne and relocated to a new permanent home to be engaged by the community. MPavilion 2017, designed by Netherlands-based duo Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten of OMA, can now be found on the grounds of Monash University’s Clayton campus; MPavilion 2016, designed by Bijoy Jain of India’s Studio Mumbai, is located at Melbourne Zoo; MPavilion 2015, designed by British architect Amanda Levete of AL_A, has a permanent home in Melbourne’s Docklands; and MPavilion 2014, designed by Australian architect Sean Godsell of Sean Godsell Architects, can be found at Melbourne’s Hellenic Museum.

The Naomi Milgrom Foundation was founded in 2014, and its purpose is to enrich Australian cultural life by engaging new audiences with exceptional art, design and architecture.  The Foundation, led by Naomi Milgrom AO, has become a model for public-private collaboration by enabling new projects with a focus on public, industry and education components.