Train of Thought
From our January 2025 Newsletter
The NVG architecture commission for 2024, Home Truth by Breathe walks a fantastic line between immersion through playful experience and the seriousness of the posited ideas.
The integrity of the concept is superbly balanced with the clarity and tactility of the material palette and changes in spatial quality. The recycled polymer walling is alluring in its shift with scale and Breathe have nailed the proportions with the lofty spaces you first move through being fully immersive and the shift to the smaller timber spaces piquing interest in their inviting cosiness.
We visited on a warm summers day and the pavilion was buzzing with children and adults moving through the maze like spaces, the concealed window openings of particularly interest for children to move back and forth between. The experience is rounded out with the audio track. We could have happily stayed and played for many hours.
The pavilion’s siting withing the garden successfully reshapes the surrounding spaces into pockets of varied experience. Experiencing the NGV garden with its abundant and varied form of shade via umbrellas, plush tree canopies adorned with festoon lights and trellis structures, I couldn’t help but wonder why such spaces are so lacking in Sydney. The hospitality of the garden on warm summers day could is incomparable to the harsh environment of Sydney Contemporary’s ‘garden’.
Across the road, we also visited Tadao Ando’s much debated MPavilion 10 for the first time. In contrast to its neighbour in the NGV, the MPavilion felt at odds with its intended purpose. Beautiful in its simplicity and deftly crafted, the sculptural pavilion felt immediately clumsy in the presence of any form of programme beyond sitting contemplatively.
A generous reflecting pool becomes an awkward, bin-lined back of house to a modest coffee cart, with baristas occasionally fishing leaves from its pristine waters. An icecream cart is haphazardly abandoned in a corner. A lone umbrella stands adjacent, slightly extending the shade of the central canopy. All the while children made space on the assorted tables and bench seat for the Boxwars craft activity that was running at the time.
The Pavilion has made a beautiful home for itself in the garden, but it’s hard to say anything felt at home inside.
-Michelle & Stephen