Melbourne’s cultural credentials are once again being put on display, following the announcement of Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando as the designer for the MPavilion 2023, which will be his first project in Australia.
As Australia’s leading architecture commission, the MPavilion has offered thriving architects and designers a chance to showcase their talents every year for nearly a decade (only missing 2020), but Ando might be the most renowned architect to participate so far. Each year, the MPavilion serves as a cultural hub in the centre of Melbourne’s Southbank Arts Precinct, with a pavilion constructed in the Queen Victoria Gardens before being donated to the local community and relocated elsewhere in Melbourne.
“The design for the MPavilion began with a desire to find a scene of eternity within the public gardens of the Queen Victoria Gardens in Melbourne,” Ando said. “Eternal, not in material or structure, but in the memory of a landscape that will continue to live in people’s hearts.”
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“I have long admired how Tadao Ando responds to and incorporates the particularity of a place into his design and his belief that architecture can shape a society,” said the founder of the foundation that commissions the MPavilion, Naomi Milgrom. “As the MPavilion prepares for the 10th edition, we look forward to sharing Ando’s work in Australia for the very first time and having his MPavilion become a vital site in the cultural and community life of Melbourne,” Milgrom added.
The Tadao Ando design for the MPavilion 2023 will be revealed in May and will be open to the public free of charge from the 16th of November.
