Kengo Kuma
Botanical Pavilion
To realize the ‘Botanical Pavilion’, Kengo Kuma worked alongside Geoff Nees — a melbourne-based artist and curator who has also worked on a number of architectural pavilions. Made in the japanese tradition of wooden architecture, where pieces interlock, held by tension and gravity, the structure at the NGV triennial features a tessellated interior lined with timber collected from trees felled or removed over several years at Melbourne’s royal botanic gardens. Some of the trees used within the architecture pre-date european settlement, while others signal the development of the gardens as a site of scientific research and botanical classification. Prioritizing natural phenomena over scientific order, the botanical species used are color-coded, rather than following any taxonomic order. this approach offers a statement by the designers against the reductive nature of science during the colonial era — a mindset at odds with many indigenous cultural beliefs and knowledge systems.
