The show goes on at MPavilion

Season 11 at Tadao Ando’s MPavilion has been running since November 2024 and the highlights continue well into 2025. Running until 22^nd March 2025, Season 11 sees artists, designers, makers and musicians reimagine Ando’s pavilion inside and out. It’s been co-curated with the newly formed Curatorial Collective, a cross-disciplinary group of eight thought-leading creative practitioners based in Melbourne. The free program invites curious audiences of all ages to experience architecture in new ways, spotlighting several key series alongside cornerstone events.

Building Blocks is on until 25^th January, offering hands-on design activities for families over the school holiday period, headlined by Box Wars, known for their inventive cardboard-based art creations. A significant highlight is Hands-on with a New Material, a workshop with Jessie French (OTHER MATTER). As a global leader in environmentally responsible material design, she’ll run a workshop where you’ll get to create and play with non-petrochemical plastics.

Elaine Chia, CEO of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation – a not-for-profit organisation with the central purpose of enhancing the presence and influence of creative culture in Australia – comments: “This January, Building Blocks transforms Tadao Ando’s MPavilion into a playground of collective creativity for the young and young at heart. We invite everyone to dive into hands-on craft activities, dream up fantastical AI worlds, and discover a summer of design during the school holidays.”

Every Living Thing then begins on 15^th February, running up to 6^th March, and draws inspiration from the pavilion’s park setting, examining our relationship with the non-human. It also features an installation by Reef Design Lab showcasing reef restoration techniques using their modular artificial reef system.

Related: Tadao Ando at W Osaka

BLAKitecture: HOME is set to be another standout event as Bradley Kerr and the Creative Directors of the Australian Pavilion host an interactive yarn. It comes as they prepare for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, exploring Indigenous Knowledge systems and architectural innovation.

Naomi Milgrom AC, commissioner of MPavilion, concludes: “We are incredibly grateful to the City of Melbourne for extending the life of Tadao Ando’s MPavilion in Queen Victoria Gardens. In one short year, the pavilion has become a beloved landmark for Melburnians and visitors alike – a place to gather, unwind, be inspired and connect with the natural world. MPavilion’s eleventh season builds on the first decade of MPavilion and I’m excited to see the gardens activated again this summer, and to experience the broad array of activities which take the Ando pavilion as the inspiration and springboard for new ideas and collective creativity.” 

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