MPavilion 2019 – Glenn Murcutt AO

Melbourne, Australia: MPavilion 2019, designed by Australia’s only Pritzker Architecture Prize recipient Glenn Murcutt AO, opened this week in the Queen Victoria Gardens. Internationally influential for his environmentally responsible designs with a distinctive Australian character, Murcutt’s MPavilion heralds a milestone in the architect’s fifty-year career as his first civic city design. Initiated and commissioned by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation with support from the City of Melbourne, Victorian State Government through Creative Victoria and Development Victoria, ANZ and RACV.
MPavilion 2019 is the sixth in an ongoing series of annual architect-designed summer pavilions for Melbourne. Inspired by Murcutt’s career, MPavilion this year celebrates Australian design and identity with a free four-month season of events from 14 November 2019 to 22 March 2020. MPavilion 2019 was officially opened by MPavilion founder Naomi Milgrom AO, architect Glenn Murcutt AO, City of Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp. The opening event was commemorated with a specially commissioned Welcome to Country song by Yorta Yorta soprano Deborah Cheetham AO, followed by the RMIT Master of Fashion (Design) Graduate Showcase, beginning an Opening Weekend of celebrations.
Naomi Milgrom AO, chair of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, who commissioned Glenn Murcutt to design MPavilion 2019, said: “Glenn’s fifty-year practice has inspired a new movement in thinking about climateresponsive design. His MPavilion refines the Australian characteristics we’ve all come to love about his buildings, and provokes a conversation about how Australian design can lead a growing international conversation about the future of cities.”
Glenn Murcutt said: “I felt a crisp white building that at night could be lit from within its roof—like a lantern in the Queen Victoria Gardens, giving the pavilion a feeling of lightness—would sit comfortably in the location. Having the pavilion face north, open towards the river, I could work with good climatic conditions. This also means that from within the MPavilion one can view the gardens to the river and the city.”