Glenn Murcutt Selected for 2019 MPavilion

The announcement was made on Monday, one day after the 2018 MPavilion closed, by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, which started the project in 2014 with an inaugural design by another, younger Australian architect, Sean Godsell. But since then the four other annual commissions have gone to foreign architects: Amanda Levete from Great Britain, Bijoy Jain from India, Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten from the Netherlands, and Carme Pinós from Spain. Now the temporary pavilion's author will be Australian once again, "quintessentially Australian" in Naomi Milgrom's words.

Murcutt, recipient of the 2002 Pritzker Architecture Prize, said in a statement: "It’s extraordinary what Naomi has achieved with MPavilion. She’s one of the great people in this country for supporting the arts, and more than just art but architecture, with a special understanding of city life. MPavilion is an interesting and assiduous project, and I’m honored to be commissioned."

Murcutt, an 82-year-old sole practitioner who also leads a respected "master class" at one of his creations, the Riversdale Boyd Education Centre, has realized relatively few buildings. So the MPavilion should be greatly celebrated when it opens for its four-month run in November 2019. Murcutt's most recent commission, one of his largest, is the Australian Islamic Centre, a project he has been working on for Melbourne (with Islamic architect Hakan Elevli) since 2004. Perhaps the triangular roof-scape and colorful apertures beneath it hint at what Murcutt will create for Queen Victoria Gardens...

MPavilion 2019 will open to the public on 12 November 2019, when it will start hosting, as with previous pavilions, hundreds of free events.