Could Melbourne really crush this gem from one of the world’s greatest architects?

Melbourne City Council’s decision to extend by a year the life of MPavilion 10 in the Queen Victoria Gardens, across the road from the National Gallery of Victoria, is good news. But is it really any surprise?

The Naomi Milgrom Foundation, which has sponsored the MPavilion program for the past ten years, and various interested cohorts have worked hard across the past couple of months to convince the council to keep the pavilion, designed by legendary Japanese architect Tadao Ando, in its present location for a while longer at least, and maybe even permanently. They got their wish last week when the council voted to leave the building in place until March next year, with a new free program of events starting in November.

This is a fine building, a late-stage work from the hand of one of the world’s greatest living architects. It is Ando’s only building in Australia, tiny in scope and remarkable in its simplicity and execution. It stands among the best of the pavilions to date; and there have been some good ones. At almost 83, Ando isn’t getting any younger and it is unlikely we will see another of his buildings here or anywhere in Australia anytime soon.

Made from Ando’s signature material of in situ concrete, the pavilion comprises two interlocking U-shaped sets of walls that define a room largely open to the sky and partially sheltered by a 14-metre circular aluminium canopy, like a parasol atop a concrete pillar. Paved in randomly laid bluestone, about half of the space is taken up by a shallow pond, in which recirculating water throws rippling reflections onto the underside of the hovering roof. Running nearly the length of the enclosure’s north and south walls, 17-metre eye-level slits frame horizontal views of the surrounding gardens.

Ando is the master of concrete architecture and as you would expect, the quality of the concrete here is almost flawless. Up close, you want to run your hands across it, just to feel the sensual beauty of its surfaces.

The latest in a series that started a decade ago with an annual commission for a temporary shelter on the same site, each by a different design practice, often from outside Australia, the pavilion serves not just as a place for quiet contemplation and reflection, but as the setting for a myriad of free workshops, talks, and performances, extending from late spring each year through to early autumn of the next.

Modelled on the Serpentine Gallery pavilion in London, which each year presents the work of an international architect or design team who has not completed a building in England at the time of the gallery’s invitation, the MPavilion program has become a fixture in Melbourne’s cultural life, providing an opportunity to experience small works – follies, if you will – by leading Australian and international architects.