MPavilion

What goes into commissioning and designing a contemporary cultural space? How should we be thinking about innovation in this context? What are the opportunities that come intertwined with a brief to design a temporary building? Our first MTalks event traces the evolution of MPavilion in its second iteration—from brief to build. Hear from MPavilion’s patron Naomi Milgrom, whose foundation initiated the commissions; acclaimed architect Amanda Levete, whose London-based practice designed our 2015/16 MPavilion; and Victoria and Albert Museum director Martin Roth, who has been working with Amanda’s studio—AL_A—on the museum’s anticipated subterranean extension and new courtyard entrance.

This panel brings together architects a range of positions—local, national and international—to review and debate the role of the government architect. The panel includes Ian Gilzean, Scottish government architect; Jill Garner, acting Victorian government architect; John Denton, former Victorian government architect; and Helen Lochhead, assistant NSW government architect. Moderated by Andrew Mackenzie, director of the architecture competitions organiser CityLab, and director of the architecture publishing house URO Media.

http://www.mpavilion.org/program/the-role-of-the-government-architect

Chris Sanderson (of The Future Laboratory) presents a lecture on ‘Designing our future selves: How life in the 21st century is re-modelling what it means to be human’. Technology doesn’t transform society; society transforms itself, using technology. This insight informs a whistle-stop 30-minute journey into the new social mores and trends that are highlighting how the tech-obsessed 21st-century citizen is redesigning expectations around ownership, sharing, a sense of self and an obligation to society in this me-focused era of selfies, photobombs, constant comment, continuous partial attention, convergence and the internet of things.

http://www.mpavilion.org/program/chris-sanderson-of-london-s-the-future-laboratory-on-designing-our-future-selves

Discover the role of architecture and design in modern city life firsthand from the people who are making Melbourne vibrant. In this MTalk, Dr Flavia Marcello and Bridgette Engeler Newbury—both leading researchers at Swinburne University—discuss the evolution of brands, branding and branded environments, from the shopping arcades of nineteenth-century Paris to the spaces of today that are the interfaces between global ideas and local actions. How have brands developed from something burned on cattle’s skin into symbols of desire full of status and emotion?

http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-swinburne-university-of-technology-presents-brands-in-the-environment

De Anima, by Brook Andrew, was a major new video installation on display at RMIT Design Hub from 12 December 2014 to 14 February 2015. In this MTalk, presented by RMIT Design Hub, Justin Shoulder and Mama Alto revisit their performances from De Anima in a live response to the film’s composition by Theodore Wohng. Their performance is followed by a Q&A with Brook Andrew, Theodore Wohng, Justin Shoulder, Mama Alto and RMIT Design Hub curators Fleur Watson and Kate Rhodes.

http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-rmit-design-hub

Melbourne School of Design (MSD) presents an MTalks session in collaboration with Tract Consulting. During October 2014, Tract’s national practice ran a design forum called ‘Rethinking the strip’ that focused on the challenges facing traditional strip-shopping precincts. Tract adopted a shop for the month of October and invited an MSD design studio—including architects, landscape architects and urban design students—to test ideas and exchange thoughts on the future of a declining retail strip. This follow-up forum at MPavilion explores issues of increased vacancy on our high streets.

http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-melbourne-school-of-design

Over the last twenty-five years, the increased presence of fashion in museums across the world has generated debate about curatorial modes, as well as about how fashion is understood when presented in these modes. In this MTalk, curator and fashion commentator Robyn Healy discusses non-customary exhibition practices—those that don‘t just display fashion via linear dress histories. Touching on numerous approaches, from historical imagination to design process, she considers how different arrangements of clothes let audiences explore different ideas of fashion.

http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-curating-fashion-from-designer-wear-to-dust-with-robyn-healy

On the eve of Chinese artist Yang Fudong’s solo exhibition at ACMI, MPavilion presented a prelude discussion about his stylised usage of architectural motifs. The discussion, moderated by MPavilion senior curator Natalie King, also investigated the proliferation and design agendas of new museums in China. Guest speakers include Li Ning, curator of the Academic & Research Department at the Shanghai Art Museum, and Claire Roberts, historian of Chinese art and senior lecturer of Art History at the University of Adelaide.

http://www.mpavilion.org/program/mtalks-acmi-presents-a-discussion-about-the-yang-fudong-filmscapes-exhibition-and-new-museums-in-china

Monash University Art, Design and Architecture (MADA) generates creatively provocative ideas and forms that examine social, economic and human issues in order to reshape the world. In this talk, MADA’s Callum Morton and Diego Ramírez-Lovering lead a discussion about the procurement of innovative architecture and public art in the City of Melbourne. Guest panellists include Geoffrey London—former Victorian Government Architect—and Charlotte Day, director of Monash University Museum of Art.

In 1932, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) established the world’s first curatorial department devoted to architecture and design. Director Glenn D. Lowry pioneered and presided over the museum’s 2004 renovation, designed by the Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi, and is currently overseeing the ambitious expansion and redevelopment that is set for completion in 2018. Lowry spoke at MPavilion in October 2014 about design’s role in the museum, and was joined in conversation by Edmund Capon, chair of the Australian Institute of Architects Foundation and former director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

http://www.mpavilion.org/program/moma-director-glenn-d-lowry-in-conversation-with-edmund-capon