It was just before Durga Puja celebrations kicked off last year that architect Bijoy Jain was travelling through the Indian state of West Bengal. A year later, as Indians at home and abroad mark Durga Puja by worshipping the goddess and visiting elaborate pandals this week, a glimpse of the bamboo structures Mr. Jain saw in Malda stands amidst the lush greens of the Queen Victoria Gardens in Melbourne, Australia.
Made of seven kilometres of bamboo, 50 tonnes of stone and 26 km of rope, the MPavilion 2016 designed by Mr. Jain has brought traditional Indian craftsmanship to Melbourne. With heritage buildings and skyscrapers in the background, Mr. Jain’s MPavilion stands out in its simplicity.
The MPavilion is a commissioned project, now in its third edition, in which acclaimed architects design a temporary pavilion for a four-month-long programme of talks, workshops, installations and performances at the Queen Victoria Gardens in Melbourne’s famous Southbank Arts Precinct. The project is conceived by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation with support from government authorities.
“The idea was to do something made by a group of hands…There are other ways to think of buildings,” Mr. Jain, who founded the celebrated Mumbai-based Studio Mumbai, told The Hindu from Melbourne.
Celebrating tradition The pavilion, which covers an area of 16.8 square metres and plus a tazia at the entrance, brought Indian and Australian building practices together — the floor is of bluestone from Port Fairy in Victoria, the bamboo poles were made in India and shipped to Melbourne, and the panels were made by craftspeople outside Mumbai, where Australian builders travelled to learn how to work with bamboo.
“The roof was made by Adivasis in Maharashtra. Australia also has indigenous cultures that have some similarities with ours. This was a way to revive that commonality,” said Mr. Jain.
A Melbourne-based builder, Robert Irwin, who travelled to India for the project, told The Hindu at the then under-construction pavilion in September, that working with bamboo was a “real art”. Starting with its opening on October 4, the pavilion will remain at the Queen Victoria Gardens for four months, during which it will host a variety of events.
After that, like the pavilions of previous years, it will be permanently placed elsewhere in Melbourne for the public to enjoy.
Mr. Jain is hoping that in its life after the Queen Victoria Gardens the pavilion becomes the sort of space that “provokes”.
“It is familiar and unfamiliar. In the context of the glass skyscrapers in Melbourne, it stands out. But, making a simple hut is embedded in our DNA. It is visceral,” said Mr. Jain.
Naomi Milgrom, who chairs the Naomi Milgrom Foundation that started MPavilion, said that visitors were “gravitating” towards Mr. Jain’s pavilion.
“Every year I set out to choose an architect who will inspire and engage the community… Mr. Jain’s approach to design reflects a deep concern for craft, sustainability and community,” she said.
She added: “He has designed an open, accessible space for people, where knowledge can be shared and ideas can be exchanged — a place where they gather, talk, think and reflect.”
