(15 March 2023, Melbourne, Australia) The Naomi Milgrom Foundation today announced that it has awarded Pritzker Prize-winner Tadao Ando with the commission for MPavilion 10 in Queen Victoria Gardens, located in the heart of Melbourne’s city centre. Over the past decade, MPavilion has worked with the world’s most significant architectural thinkers to create a space for engagement with urgent urban, civic, and design concerns. Ando is the seventh leading international architect to have his first work in Australia commissioned by MPavilion, the country’s foremost annual architecture commission and design festival.
“Each year, MPavilion commissions architects with a unique design language and social purpose and gives them complete freedom to realize their vision. 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 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.”
One of Japan’s leading contemporary architects, Tadao Ando is known for his striking geometric interventions in nature and his precise, assured use of concrete. Among his many notable works are the Church of the Light (1989; Osaka, Japan), Pulitzer Arts Foundation (2001; St. Louis, USA), Chichu Art Museum (2004; Naoshima, Japan), 21_21 Design Sight (2007; Tokyo, Japan), and The Bourse de Commerce—Pinault Collection (2020; Paris, France). With this commission, Ando joins a roster of distinguished architects carefully curated by Naomi Milgrom to explore the intersection of design and contemporary culture.
“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,” shared architect Tadao Ando. “Eternal, not in material or structure, but in the memory of a landscape that will continue to live in people’s hearts.” Details of Ando’s design for MPavilion 10 will be revealed in May of this year, and it will open to the public on 16 November 2023.
MPavilion serves as a cultural laboratory where the community can come together to experience, engage, and share. In 2023, the annual five-month festival of free public programs will continue with talks and lectures, music performances, and kid-friendly workshops, among many other design-focused events. The 2023 themes, which will be informed by the concerns of Tadao Ando’s practice, will be announced in the months to come.
MPavilion 9 by the Bangkok-based architecture and design practice all(zone) is currently open to the public through 6 April 2023. Design director of all(zone) Rachaporn Choochuey said: “The MPavilion project is one of the only design commissions in the world that gives architects the freedom to really experiment and take risks to create extraordinary work.” MPavilion is an annual initiative of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation and is supported by the City of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government through Creative Victoria. The first nine MPavilions have welcomed more than 900,000 visitors and hosted more than 3,500 free events since its establishment in 2014. At the end of each MPavilion season, the Naomi Milgrom Foundation gifts the pavilion to the people of Victoria and relocates it to a new, permanent, public home in the community.