Maree-Elizabeth Lewis

ACU PhD student

Maree-Elizabeth is an accomplished professional designer with over 30 years of industry experience working extensively in the design and construction sector. Maree-Elizabeth has confidently managed high-profile, high-value projects from initial concept through to completion while having the great privilege of working alongside some of Australia's and the world's recognised brands.

It was during her time as an Exhibition Designer in Melbourne that her true passion for history and architecture were able to combine. Working on such projects as The Prime Ministers Exhibition and Kokoda Trail Exhibition at The National Capital Museum (Canberra), Bonegilla Exhibition, 500 Years of the Golden Dragon Exhibition and Aust Care Refugee Exhibition for The Immigration Museum (Melbourne), The Historical Timeline Exhibition and Holocaust Acknowledgement for Jewish Museum of Australia (St Kilda), and The Orient Express tourism display 2000, 2001 and decorative detail for the Venice to France Train rail-link 2003. This experience, together with volunteering at St Stephen's Cathedral in Brisbane, as an architectural tour guide after the Sunday morning Mass, led Maree-Elizabeth to research the use of light within the structure of the Catholic Church building.

A turning point came in Maree-Elizabeth's design career when she began to see how faith and design come together to tell a story of time and a gathering community.

Thesis title

A Place Fit for Worship: Building Montini's Liturgical Reform.

Synopsis
Over the span of his eight-and-a-half-year tenure as Archbishop of Milan, Montini undertook an ambitious church-building program, completing more than 135 new churches. He stated: "It is the moment to save the faith of our people by simple building". The architecture of these new churches evidenced a distinct stylistic design shift from that of previous predominant techniques. Architecturally the 1950s was revisiting the Modern movement of the 1920s, which saw many architects focus upon the form, art and aesthetics of what became known as an 'International style' of architecture. This thesis will investigate what emerging ecclesiological, liturgical, and sociological trends prompted the advancement of innovative church architectural design in the 1950s in Milan. It will focus in particular on the impact of the Archbishop of Milan, Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) whose forward-looking liturgical views (influenced by the Liturgical Movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries) were already evident in the 1950s.