Ando's MPavilion Extended a Full Year

John Hill

10. April 2024

Photo: John Gollings

The Naomi Milgrom Foundation — the commissioner of the annual MPavilion — and the City of Melbourne have announced that the tenth MPavilion, designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, will remain open to the public in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Gardens through March 2025.

Ando's MPavilion opened to the public on November 16, 2023, and wrapped up its five-month run of hosting more than 150 public events two weeks ago, on March 28. Instead of the dismantling and moving that has occurred with previous pavilions, Ando's signature concrete creation will stay for another year, hosting more events from November 2024 to March 2025.

While the decision to extend the 10th MPavilion another twelve months might be due, in part, to the difficulty in moving the structure as part of the Milgrom Foundation's donation to a public venue in Melbourne, it is not mentioned in today's announcement. Emphasis is rather put on the exceptional nature of the design: Ando's only project in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere.

“We’ve been thrilled to see visitors of all ages and from far and wide flock to MPavilion, curious to experience what Tadao Ando, an extraordinary master of design, has created for Melbourne. Being in the pavilion, looking across water and out to the green of the surrounding parklands has an immediate and unique calming effect, a slowing down amidst the fast pace of contemporary life. […] Engaging in great architecture and design enriches our city and our lives, and this extended partnership with the City of Melbourne means even more of the community can now enjoy these moments for another year.”
Naomi Milgrom

In the ten years since Australian architect Sean Godsell designed the inaugural MPavilion, seven international architects have seen their first projects in Australia come to fruition in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Gardens, among them Rem Koolhaas, Bijoy Jain, and Carme Pinos. As is customary, the temporary pavilions have been donated to other local institutions so they have longer lives and become permanent parts of public life in Melbourne. For example, the fourth MPavilion, designed by OMA partners Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten, was gifted to Monash University in 2018, while the pavilion designed by Australia's only Pritzker Prize winner, Glenn Murcutt, was given to the University of Melbourne in 2020. It will probably be at least another year before we learn about a permanent home for Ando's MPavilion.