Escape patch: Bijoy Jain’s bamboo Mpavilion launches in Melbourne

This year’s MPavilion by Bijoy Jain has just been launched in Melbroune’s Queen Victoria Gardens. An outdoor pavilion made of bamboo in a park with the city in the background. — This year’s MPavilion by Bijoy Jain has just been launched in Melbroune’s Queen Victoria Gardens

(Image credit: John Gollings)

From Sean Godsell’s openable box of surprises to Amanda Levete’s ethereal tree-inspired canopy, the MPavilion has steadily established itself as a key staple on Melbourne's architecture agenda, marking the start of the Australian summer. This year for the installation’s third edition, MPavilion founder Naomi Milgrom invited celebrated Indian architect Bijoy Jain to design his own version of the Queen Victoria Gardens folly.

Heading acclaimed architecture practice Studio Mumbai, Jain has a strong following and solid reputation for top craftsmanship, elegant designs and collaborative working. His firm creates works of all scales from its western Indian base, where they employ artisans, specialist craftspeople, as well as architects and designers to bring a rounded, craft-based approach to their commissions.

True to their signature style, the architect and his team fashioned a structure out of bamboo (some seven kilometres of it, in fact) for this year’s MPavilion commission. Put together using stone and rope, the piece is inspired by traditional Indian structures, explains Jain – a tazia, a ceremonial tower created traditionally for festivals, sits next to the pavilion, marking its entrance. Taking things one step further, the architect also commissioned the pavilion to be prefabricated by a family owned business in India, who worked on it over the course of four months. The pavilion sits on a bluestone floor – the material was sourced from a quarry in Part Fairy, Victoria.

Apart from providing an architectural focus to the park’s green expanses and a visual delight for its visitors day and night (there are plans to light it in the evenings and dress it with music), the pavilion is also going to be a functional rest and event space. In fact, the organisers are planning to bring it to life for the duration of its stay through a packed programme of over 400 free public events, including talks, tours, performances and installations for art, fashion and music.

This year&rsquo;s MPavilion by Bijoy Jain has just been launched in Melbroune&rsquo;s Queen Victoria Gardens. An outdoor pavilion made of bamboo in a park with the city in the background. — The structure was created this year out of seven km of bamboo, Australian-sourced bluestone and rope

Interior of an outdoor pavilion which is made of bamboo. — As every year since its conception three years ago, the pavilion will act as a resting area for the park’s visitors, but will also play host to a number of events

This year&rsquo;s MPavilion by Bijoy Jain has just been launched in Melbroune&rsquo;s Queen Victoria Gardens. An overview of a pavilion made of bamboo in a park. — Prefabricated in India by a family owned business, the pavilion was inspired by traditional Indian structures used in festivals

INFORMATION

The MPavilion is open until 18 February 2017. For more information, visit the Studio Mumbai website and the MPavilion website

Photography: John Gollings

ADDRESS

MPavilion
Queen Victoria Gardens
off St Kilda Road
Melbourne Australia

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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).