A wing and some flair: Glenn Murcutt’s MPavilion takes flight
The architect took inspiration from a picnic beneath an aeroplane wing 32 years ago to create this ethereal structure in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens.
Murcutt's sketches and a render of the design for this year's MPavilion.
It’s a long way from the ruins of Yaxchilán in southern Mexico to Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens, but Glenn Murcutt’s mind took precisely that flight of fancy through space (and time) while designing this year’s MPavilion.
Inspired by the fabric-covered, trussed wings of the light plane that carried him to the ancient Mayan citadel in the late 1980s, the pavilion – the sixth to be installed in the gardens since 2014 – beautifully embodies the architect’s maxim to "touch the earth lightly".
Stephen ToddDesign editorStephen Todd writes for The Australian Financial Review's weekly Life&Leisure lift out and AFR Magazine. Email Stephen at stephen.todd@afr.com
