Spanish architect Carme Pinós to design MPavilion 2018

The fifth MPavilion, arriving in spring 2018, will be designed by Spanish architect and educator Carme Pinós of Estudio Carme Pinós, Barcelona. Last year MPavilion was designed by OMA.

With a humanist approach to architecture, Carme is celebrated globally for her urban refurbishments, social housing, public works and furniture design. A recipient of the prestigious Berkeley-Rupp Architecture Professorship and Prize (2016), Carme has made significant contributions to advance gender equity in the field of architecture with a large body of work exhibiting a genuine commitment to community.

Among her most significant works are the Department Building of the Vienna University of Economics and Business (Austria), the Cube II Towers in Guadalajara (Mexico), the Caixaforum Cultural and Exhibition Centre in Zaragoza (Spain), and the metro station Zona Universitària and the Crematorium in the Igualada Cemetery, both in Barcelona.

Commenting on the commission for MPavilion 2018, Carme Pinós said, “It is my honour and pleasure to have this opportunity to design a new pavilion for the Naomi Milgrom Foundation. It is a great responsibility to create a unique place in this special park with views over Melbourne—a city to which I have deep attachments. I am inspired by the fact that this new project will become a cultural destination for the city.”

Naomi Milgrom AO, chair of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation who commissioned Carme Pinós to design MPavilion 2018, commented:

“Carme’s remarkable work honours the responsibility of architecture to serve a community, by creating spaces that place human experience and environment at the centre of her designs. Her approach to architecture, social housing and community reflects MPavilion’s ongoing desire to stimulate debate about the role of design and architecture in building creative and equitable cities and communities.”

Carme Pinós set up Estudio Carme Pinós in 1991 after winning international recognition for her work with the late Enric Miralles. She has been awarded the Richard J. Neutra Medal for Professional Excellence (2016), as well as numerous other awards including the Creu de Sant Jordi Medal (2015) by the Catalan Government for her cultural and social services, as well as the First Prize at the Spanish Biennial of Architecture (2008). In 2011, she was named Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects and RIBA International Fellow in 2013. Her work has also been exhibited in galleries, museums and universities worldwide: the Centre Pompidou acquired the scale models of the Caixaforum Zaragoza in Spain, the Hotel Pizota in Mexico, and the Maison de l’Algérie of Paris, while the model of the Cube I Tower currently belongs to the collection of New York’s MoMA.

In addition to MPavilion 2018, current projects by Estudio Carme Pinós include the Regional Office of the Generalitat in Tortosa (Spain); the architectural set composed by Gardunya Square, Massana School of Arts, a housing block and the west façade of the popular La Boqueria Market in the Historical District of Barcelona (Spain); and the masterplan for the historic centre of Saint Dizier (France), where Carme is also carrying out a series of interventions in public spaces. MPavilion 2018, designed by Carme Pinós, will be the first public commission in Australia by a Spanish female architect.