Bijoy Jain: The Latest Architecture and News

The MPavilion represents one of the most important architectural events happening annually in Melbourne, Australia. Initiated and founded by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, the event was first launched in 2014 and has since brought internationally recognized architects to design a temporary structure in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Gardens in a system similar to London’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. From Sean Godsell's solar-actioned panels to Studio Mumbai‘s experimental bamboo structure, each pavilion explores craftsmanship and contemporary design while fostering a rich cultural program for several months before being disassembled and donated to one of the city’s parks. As the latest pavilion was recently inaugurated by Tadao Ando, we look back at the previous editions of Australia’s most famous annual structure.

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"The taste of the apple lies in the contact of the fruit with the palate, not in the fruit itself," Jorge Luis Borges once said. The taste is not something inherent in itself; its experience is the result of an encounter. Similarly, emotions are not contained within architecture, but are only felt through the encounter of the body with the space, when it becomes a place. How does the environment affect how we feel? This is the question that drives the duo of artists and filmmakers Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine in their latest endeavor, the book "The Emotional Power of Space," which will be released on May 17th in an event preceding the opening of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023.

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The fourteenth Alvar Aalto Medal has been awarded to the Indian architectural office Studio Mumbai and its director Bijoy Jain. The award, carrying the name of the Finnish architect and designed by Aalto himself, was founded in 1967 in order to honor creative architectural work. Given out every three years by the Alvar Aalto Foundation, the medal “can be given to persons who have gained merit in the field of creative architecture in a very significant way”.

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For those in the northern hemisphere, the last full week in January last week kicks off with Blue Monday - the day claimed to be the most depressing of the year. Weather is bleak, sunsets are early, resolutions are broken, and there’s only the vaguest glimpse of a holiday on the horizon. It’s perhaps this miserable context that is making the field seem extra productive, with a spate of new projects, toppings out and, completions announced this week.

The week of 21 January 2019 in review, after the break: 

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With Design Miami/ Basel 2017 well underway (from June 13-18), ArchDaily has compiled a list of the best architect-designed furniture pieces on display at the event. This year, notable items include works by MAD Architects, Christ & Gantenbien, Trix & Robert Haussman, John Lautner, Jonathen Muecke, Jean Prouvé and Sou Fujimoto.

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The 2016 MPavilion, designed by Indian architect Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai, has opened in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens. Over the next four months, the bamboo structure will play host to a free public program of over 400 talks, workshops, performances and installations.

Bijoy Jain’s design joins the growing international trend of “handmade architecture” as it becomes the largest bamboo structure in Australia, utilizing 7 kilometers of Indian bamboo, 50,000 kilograms of Australian bluestone, 5,000 wooden pins and 26 kilometers of rope to cover a 16.8 square meter area. The slatted roof panels are constructed from sticks of the Karvi plant and were woven together by craftspeople in India over a four month period.

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The Naomi Milgrom Foundation has chosen Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai to design Melbourne's 2016 MPavilion. Following Amanda Levete's rendition of the unique commission, which closed its doors Sunday after hosting four months of free events, Jain will be the third architect to design the annual MPavilion.

"I’m honored to be commissioned by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation to design the next MPavilion in Melbourne. I want it to be a symbol of the elemental nature of communal structures. Like Naomi, I see MPavilion as a place of engagement: a space to discover the essentials of the world - and of oneself," commented Jain.