Architect Bijoy Jain does India proud: Selected to design MPavilion 2016, Melbourne, Australia!!

Every year for four years, an outstanding architect will be commissioned to design a temporary pavilion for the  Queen Victoria Gardens in the centre of Melbourne’s Southbank Arts Precinct. From October to February creative collaborators come together at MPavilion to present free talks, workshops and performances. The MPavilion initiative – a vision of the Foundation’s Chairperson Naomi Milgrom – further establishes Melbourne’s status as the art-and-culture hub of Australia.

The inaugural MPavilion 2014 was designed by Australian firm Sean Godsell Architects, which later was given a permanent home at Melbourne’s Hellenic Museum. The 2015 MPavilion was commissioned to British architect Amanda Levete of AL_A. And now comes the announcement of the selection of Ar. Bijoy Jain for the third edition - MPavilion 2016! The announcement came from The Naomi Milgrom Foundation (NMF) following the closure of MPavilion 2015 on Sunday 7^th  February – which was a resounding success having received over76,000 visitors attending the 419 free events hosted through the Australian summer. Indeed, Bijoy Jain’s selection is a proud moment for Indian architecture!!

MPavilion’s 2015/16 program has been put together by Creative Director and CEO Robert Buckingham, in collaboration with Associate Producer Jessie French, Creative Associate Natalie King, and Dan Honey and Emma Telfer of Office for Good Design.

Bijoy Jain - the versatile Indian architect, highly acclaimed for his intuitive, earth-bound, sustainable approach to architecture felt honoured on learning about being awarded the commission for MPavilion 2016 said, “Like Naomi, I see MPavilion as a place of engagement: a space to discover the essentials of the world - and of oneself.” His vision for the pavilion: “I want it to be a symbol of the elemental nature of communal structures.” The MPavilion 2016 will be presented free to the public from October 5, 2016, through February 5, 2017.  A design for the same is expected to be released by Studio Mumbai, later this year. 

Studio Mumbai founded by Bijoy Jain in Mumbai in 1995, sees “ideas being explored through the production of large-scale mock-ups, models, material studies, sketches and drawings. Projects are developed through careful consideration of place and a practice that draws from traditional skills, local building techniques, materials, and an ingenuity arising from limited resources.” The architecture that emerges from this process “contains the life of its environment” - a characteristic feature evolving out of Jain's commitment to creating climate-responsive tropical architecture. Some of Jain’s notable works include Copper House II, Palmyra House, and Ahmedabad House. He is currently working on a weaving workshop in India – Ganka Maki Textile Studio; a multi-activity hotel space – Onomichi Community Center in Japan; and a hotel wellness center in France. Jain's designs have been shown at the Venice Biennale, the Victoria & Albert Museum and he was awarded the Grande Medaille d’Or from the Academie D’Architecture in Paris in 2014. 

The Bawa-inspired architect claims he got the best piece of advice from the master architect Goeffrey Bawa himself. “We were at his house (in Sri Lanka) and he said, ‘There is too much architecture between me and the view.’ The idea is about negotiating the landscape, the moment between being in a physical man-made space and a natural place.” Indeed, all of Bijoy Jain’s work does have the sense of absence, a metaphorical play of positive and negative spaces where absence of elements shapes the architectural spaces. 

Cover Pic: Ar. Bijoy Jain with Naomi Milgrom; 1. Ar. Bijoy Jain; 2, 3, 4: Sean Godsell's Inaugural MPavilion 2014 - inspired by iconic outback sheds and verandas, the steel structure, with a glazed roof and fully automated outer skin, opened and closed to echo the way plants respond to the sun. 5, 6, 7: Amanda Levete's MPavilion 2015 - employing materials and technology developed for the aerospace industry to create a graceful ‘forest canopy’ of five and three metre-wide translucent petals supported on slender columns. Each petal is just a few millimetres thick, gently responds to the climate and is fitted with LED lights activated at sunset to give a light performance synchronised with music. Glimpses from the architecture of Bijoy Jain - 8, 9: Copper House; 10, 11 Palmyra House; 12, 13: Ahmedabad House; 14: The weaving workshop Ganka Maki Textile Studio; 15. Studio Mumbai exhibit "Work-Place" at Venice Biennale 2010;