Melbourne’s new cultural hub, MPavilion, has been criticised by leading architects for lacking ambition and referencing a London building, and the cost of the project has also been questioned.
The first MPavilion, which was unveiled in Queen Victoria Gardens on Monday, was designed by Australian architect Sean Godsell and inspired by the annual Serpentine pavilion in London’s Hyde Park. The temporary venue will play host to a cafe and more than 100 cultural events over the next four months.
But while it has been welcomed by the state government as somewhere to complement Melbourne’s rich array of cultural offerings, the reaction from architects and some members of the public has not been as congratulatory.
Professor Donald Bates, the chair of architectural design at Melbourne University, said the MPavilion project was “not the most challenging idea”.
“Most architects know what Sean will come up with before he does it, his way of seeing the world is very fixed,” Bates told Guardian Australia. “So it’s not really a surprise, the ideas aren’t new.
“I think it’s refined and non-challenging. I don’t have a problem with looking at the example of the Serpentine, but we should do something better than that or do something different and this doesn’t do either.”
Commissioned by businesswoman and philanthropist Naomi Milgrom, the 12-metre by 12-metre steel, aluminium and wood structure has an automated outer skin that allows flaps to fully open, similar to a metallic flower. The flaps close in winds of more than 60km/h.
A new, temporary MPavilion will be designed each year for the next four years. Bates said he hoped a young Melbourne architect would be commissioned for the future designs and added that the public might bypass it unless they were well aware of the events held at the venue.
“There’s no clear footpath to it, it just sits in the landscape,” he said. “I’m not sure how inviting it is to people who will be walking along St Kilda Road.”
Jan van Schaik, the director of Melbourne-based MvS Architects, said the work was risk-free and “privatises” a public area of parkland.
“Sean has done some really amazing projects and good public work, but risks haven’t been taken here,” he told Guardian Australia. “There’s a whole community of architects working to establish unique, experimental and inventive architecture in Melbourne, so to borrow an idea from London is like something from 200 years ago.
“It’s cultural cringe. It’s like ‘poor little Australia, it can’t do anything itself, it has to go to London.’ It’s a damaging message to give to the public.”
Van Schaik added MPavilion itself was “beautifully polite and inoffensive”.
MPavilion has been praised by some on social media, although some Twitter users have questioned the structure’s sheep shed structure and cost.
The project has been provided with $1.3m over four years from the City of Melbourne and the Victorian government.
Robert Doyle, Melbourne’s lord mayor, said MPavilion was more than just a public art installation.
“They are beautiful structures in themselves, they are contributions to art and design but they’re also activity hubs where people will come to enjoy themselves, to listen to talks, to see exhibitions, to have meetings and that’s the importance of these pavilions,” he said.
