Since 2014, MPavilion has been Australia’s answer to the Serpentine Pavilion. Every year, an excellent architect is chosen to design a public pavilion for temporary use in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens. Past pavilions have been designed by Sean Godsell, Bijoy Jain, & Glen Murcutt, among others. A number of public events are held in the structure during temporary display, after which the pavilions are moved to a permanent site in Melbourne and gifted to the city.
After recently seeing Amanda Levete’s 2015 MPavilion (which was relocated to Docklands) and MAP Studio‘s 2021 pavilion at Queen Victoria Gardens, I’m on a mission to find the others! So I went to check out the MPavilion at Monash University’s Clayton campus, which is around half an hour from Melbourne’s CBD and designed by Rem Koolhaas & David Gianotten of OMA!
OMA’s pavilion is strikingly minimal, a floating Apple-esque matte aluminium band above undulating landscape. It’s an intelligent design solution- with fixed architectural infrastructure hovering above, and variable landscape undulating below. The landform creates varied levels of openness within the pavilion, blurring the lines between interior and exterior, and acting as an adaptable amphitheatre for public events.
The design makes me imagine a prototype future city with megastructure/infrastructure floating above a porous and varied ground plane.
The pavilion was designed by Rem Koolhaas & David Gianotten of OMA, who described the pavilion:
“MPavilion 2017 is a public venue on an intimate scale. Located in the Queen Victoria Gardens in the centre of Melbourne’s Southbank Arts Precinct, MPavilion intends to draw the community in and act as a cultural laboratory. OMA has designed a temporary structure that, along with providing space for performances, entertainment and events, can also perform itself. MPavilion’s ground plan is shaped by two grandstands – one fixed, the other movable. Together they determine the setup of the performance space. The larger static grandstand is excavated from the surrounding landscape and embedded in twelve different species of indigenous plants, giving a sense of the Australian setting. The smaller grandstand can rotate, allowing it to shift functions from seating to stage, blurring the distinction between performer and audience. As one complete structure, the sum of its parts, the pavilion becomes a modern-day amphitheatre, one that mixes the spectator and the spectacle. The main infrastructure of the pavilion, adorned with lighting and hanging points, is within the floating roof, a two-metre-high mechanical grid structure made of aluminium-clad steel. The mechanical functions of the canopy can be activated to suit the type of event taking place; it is an open-air venue for performances, entertainment and sports. Existing of both static and dynamic elements, the pavilion allows for many configurations and can generate unexpected programming, echoing the ideals of the typology of the amphitheatre. With the city as a backdrop, the pavilion provokes discussion on Melbourne, its development and its surroundings.”
Architect’s Statement, Rem Koolhaas & David Gianotten of OMA
Check out the map location below if you are looking for the pavilion, or just curious what happened to this unique structure.
Images by Jonathan Choe
