My “view from the office” as I write this column is an expanse of iced- over ocean and snow-covered peaks, on the edge of the Arctic Circle. I’m aboard a polar explorer ship named Le Commandant Charcot, operated by French luxury cruise line Ponant, navigating the frosty waters off Greenland. Now, I absolutely hate the word ‘awesome’ when used to describe everyday things, like a tasty burger or a good movie. But the landscape here? Reader, it is legitimately, authentically, inarguably awesome.

The wildlife is impressive, too. On our first day out, I saw a couple of whales. Yesterday, I was awoken a little after 5am by the excited voice of our captain, Étienne Garcia, booming out of the speaker in my cabin, announcing that a polar bear had been spotted off the starboard bow of the vessel. I threw on my Heattech longjohns, Cleverley boots and Columbia fleece, grabbed my camera, and bolted for the deck. There she was, bounding across the ice. It was an incredible sight to begin the day with. (The bear, not my odd get-up.)

At the start of our journey, Captain Garcia—a spry Frenchman resembling a less sybaritic Serge Gainsbourg—had explained that seeing a polar bear from the deck of the ship was a wonderful thing, a rare treat few have the good fortune to experience. Encountering one of the beasts during a trek on the ice, meanwhile, is a far less attractive proposition.

Polar bears are the largest and deadliest bears on Earth. While their cousin, the American grizzly, will attack a person if it feels threatened or is worried for its cubs (you’ve seen The Revenant, right?), polar bears are strictly carnivorous—100 per cent meat diet, they don’t even want a side of fries—and view homo sapiens as a legitimate food source. They will not hesitate to make a meal of you. They’re fast, running up to 40 kilometres per hour, and will as happily stalk, kill and eat a human as a seal.

The local Inuit people return the favour, hunting polar bears for food and their water-resistant pelts. “The meat is good,” an Inuit guide told me. “It’s sweet.” A few hours after our ship’s bear encounter, I found myself seated atop one of the tasty yet fearsome animal’s skin on a dog sled, riding across the frozen sea to look at a glacier.

Her hull is rated Polar Class 2—bested only by hard-as-nails Russian atomic icebreakers—making Le Commandant Charcot one of the few vessels rugged enough to penetrate the ice in this beautiful but forbidding part of the world. In fact, she’s the only purpose-built passenger ship that can reach places like the east Greenland coast where I enjoyed my bearskin sled ride and glacial sightseeing. “We are the only one,” Captain Garcia said. “To have this kind of experience, there are no others.” Want to cruise to the North Pole while dining on Michelin- standard cuisine? This is the sloop for you, friend.

Belying her tough exterior, the ship is tastefully designed and extremely luxurious. One might expect as much, with Ponant being owned by France’s multi-billionaire Pinault family, proprietors of Kering, the parent company of Gucci, Saint Laurent, Brioni, Bottega Veneta and numerous other iconic labels.

The menu at the more formal of the ship’s two restaurants is the work of acclaimed chef Alain Ducasse, and the wine list boasts beaucoup bottles from Romanée-Conti, Petrus, Chateau Angelus and Cheval Blanc, among other vigneron big guns. The house pour Champagne is Henriot; the standard whisky, Talisker 10-year- old; my vodka martinis are made with Grey Goose.

The décor—all tasteful slates, taupe leather and matte Nordic wood panelling—is by architects Wilmotte & Associés and hospitality interiors specialists, Studio Jean-Philippe Nuel. The ship accommodates a maximum of 270 guests, with around 200 staff serving them, and on my journey the ratio is better than 1:1. In all, it’s the most genteel way of seeing the Arctic Circle.

Late last year I found myself in another circle altogether, one designed by Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect Tadao Ando. It was the 10th edition of an ongoing project called MPavilion. This initiative, funded by wildly successful Australian fashion entrepreneur Naomi Milgrom, sees leading architects from around the world invited to create a temporary pavilion that will be constructed in Queen Victoria Park in central Melbourne, serving as a meeting place and event space for a six-month period, before being moved elsewhere.

Most philanthropists direct their money to medicine, education, ecology, politics or the arts. The built environment tends to be overlooked. When I asked her why she so enthusiastically and generously supported this unique programme, costing her eponymous foundation millions each year, Milgrom said, “It’s a celebration of architecture. Not only of the built form, but of the idea that architecture can inform the way we live and that we can have that debate about how we can use architecture and design to do things better at the intersection of people, buildings and nature.”

Ando’s pavilion—his first structure in Australia—was so well received that last month, it was announced that it has been given a second lease of life. It will now remain in place for an additional six months (perhaps staying permanently, rumour has it). Before the zen-brutalist structure’s unveiling, Ando told me, “It evokes Japan’s traditional walled gardens. Inside there is a space to reflect, interact and appreciate that which is contained within, be it nature, art or people.”

The building may be cast in Ando’s signature grey concrete, but it is far from cold. This is the Osaka-based architect’s magic: his austere aesthetic serves to frame the surrounding greenery beautifully, while features like ponds or pools mirror the sky and trees. “One of the reasons I chose the architects that I have,” Milgrom said, “is because of their celebration of nature.”

“For MPavilion, the spatial sequence of circles and squares create spatial sequences of light and dark,” Ando explained. “These change throughout the day and the seasons as the sun moves through the sky. The surfaces that the light touches also change—walls reveal arresting patterns of shadows, while the water from the reflecting pool may cast dappled patterns on a previously plain surface.”

Ando told me he is proudest of his buildings when they manage to overcome a significant structural challenge, as the MPavilion did by successfully integrating a 17-metre central slit in one of its walls. The natural background seen through the gap is an ever-changing visual tableau: “The result is a moment in architecture that reflects our joy of living,” Ando said.

When it comes down to it, as grand as they may be, the magnificent boat I’m now aboard and Ando’s Melbournian building are merely lenses through which to view the beauty of nature. They are frames for the greatest work of art of all—the world around us. Which is circular, by the way, much as barmy Flat Earthers may wish to convince us otherwise.