Blakitecture: Beyond acknowledgement and into action

Each year since 2014, an architect of significance has been invited to design a temporary pavilion in Queen Victoria Gardens, Melbourne on the Yaluk-ut Weelam Lands of the Boon Wurrung people. Entitled MPavilion, the annual structure becomes a stage for four months of programming that explores and responds to the values, aspirations and areas of interest of the commissioned architect. Blakitecture is one of these programs: an annual series of talks exploring all things Indigenous within the built environment. Blakitecture commenced in 2017–18 as part of MPavilion’s inaugural regional program. Eight Indigenous architects, landscape architects, interior designers, researchers and students engaged in a broad conversation that responded to Rem Koolhaas and architecture and urbanism practice OMA’s interest in the “countryside” from Indigenous Australian perspectives. The talk was incredibly well attended, and what became evident from this forum was that one two-hour event was both extremely valuable and completely insufficient. Thus, the Blakitecture series was born.

The series follows a few simple yet fundamental guidelines. First, the conversation needs to further our collective