Mother of God Church

Mother of God is a large church that occupies the majority of its gently sloping kite-shaped corner allotment. The building is situated at a moderate setback from Wilfred Road (north) and slightly below the street level of Robinhood Road (east). In the west and south, the property is bordered by private residences. The triangular front garden is characterised by an area of lawn with a centrally planted tree (existing is a replacement) and bisected by a driveway of pre-cast concrete panels (initially ‘Lilydale Topping’). Other original landscaping includes the tall Atlas Cedar (Cedurs atlantica ‘Glauca’) situated northwest of the façade and a small sunken courtyard garden in the southeast corner, compromised of brick paving and planter beds.1 A non-original timber paling fence extends along the south and west perimeter. 

The church consists of several distinct volumes. The key components are the principal form (nave and sanctuary) with attached narthex (north) and ancillary wing, which runs most of the west elevation and part of the south. The small volume to the east elevation provides access to and from the sunken courtyard is also original. Other projections from the main footprint are later additions (see below). 

The main volume – comprising the nave and sanctuary – has a lozenge-shaped plan and form. This bold geometry is most visible and best appreciated from the east (Robinhood Road). The lozenge roof form, clad in its original slate, tapers to a gable at each end and has an elongated original ridge vent. Surmounting the apex of both gable ends are copper crosses. The concrete frame, painted white, is most evident to both side elevations, where it includes boxed gutters. The frame also defines the edge of the façade. The north-facing gable end – traverse to Wilfred Road - has a stained-glass wall of green, blue, red, orange with three narrow cantilevered canopies (in a stepped configuration). 

Mother of God’s façade (to Wilfred Road) features a narthex (a vestibule/antechamber) situated well below the gable end. It has a flat concrete slab roof initially sheeted with asbestos felt (which may remain). The narthex roof extends to the side cantilevering upwards over the footpath to create a canopied porch to Robinhood Road. This extended roof includes four plastic dome skylights, which are original. The porch has been partly enclosed with glazing and double timber doors. Its original floor of ‘Carborundum’ (silicon carbide stone) panels with contrasting ‘English grey-blue quarry tiles has been carpeted over, although a small strip remains evident in front of the tapered concrete columns.2 It is possible that this tiling survives beneath the carpet. 

Despite these modifications, the porch – at the time of construction, an ultramodern flourish – remains readily interpretable within the place’s design schema. 

Extending along the west and part of the rear (south) elevations of the nave and sanctuary is a return wing (one room in width). It was designed to accommodate separate vestries for the priests, boys and women, as well as the ‘Chapel of Our Lady’ and toilets. This wing is roofed in the same manner as the narthex, except that it features tunnel (barrel) vaulting (four) at its midsection with projecting concrete mullions that terminate at the ground level and large arched windows (permitting light to the chapel). The front part of the wing’s western section, behind the narthex, has been replaced by a skillion-roofed and tan brick addition. There is an original section of perforated brickwork to the rear of the south wing (airflow for laboratories). 

The flat-roofed volume attached to the southern portion of the east elevation is an original component of the design; however, it underwent some modification during the earlier stages of planning and was initially envisioned with a curved stone feature wall. It includes a porch entered via recessed timber-framed, glazed double-leafed doors with toplight (south face) and enclosed the organ console and cleaner cupboard. 

A small skillion-roofed, tan-brick volume has been built to the east elevation in line with the porch’s piers. There is a similarly designed addition attached to the (south) elevation behind the sunken courtyard garden. 

Mother of God is constructed of a steel frame (welded on site), cased in precast concrete. The infill walls – recessed well back from the framing to emphasise its expression – are of pink-fawn silica (cement 9 in. by 4½ in. by 3 in.) bricks in a stretcher bond course.3 The floor is presumably a concrete slab. The designers, Mockridge, Stahle & Mitchell, were quick to embrace post-war advances in construction techniques and materials, such as the steel frame and truss systems and precast concrete, recognising their cost and time effectiveness and capacity to create large, unhindered interiors and a vast array of forms/spatial experiences. The light toned brickwork also appear to be part of an effort to harmonise the church with its immediate residential context. 

The north wall of the narthex displays five rows of alternating rectangular slots with stained glass infill (some windows are divided into panes, others three with an openable middle pane). At the lower centre is a metal plaque. The slot windows were carried through to the front part of the west wing but have been mostly deleted by the skillion-roofed addition. 

The upper part of the east elevation’s middle four bays is punctured by rows of small cruciform openings with clear glass infill. There is also a concrete-famed section of window wall at the southern end of the east elevation with ‘randomly’ spaced muntins and stained glass. The ground-floor opening near off centre in the east elevation is original but the double door is not. 

The interior of Mother of God was not inspected and is known to have undergone a succession of modifications. However, based on contemporary photographs in the public domain, some elements designed or specified by Mockridge, Stahle and Mitchell remain. These include the exposed steel roof beams, painted matt black and timber-lined ceiling. The plastered walls and vertical timber-lined dado are also apparent. In the recent past, the Hermann Hohaus-designed and produced timber altar crucifix was also evident (relocated to the side of the altar war), as were his Stations of the Cross bas-relief panels (both sidewalls). 

Until the Second World War, the preponderance of churches constructed in Victoria were historicist in style, chiefly drawing from British antecedents. After the lifting of building restrictions and increased availability of materials/labour, a small number of pareddown, innovative churches began to appear in the early 1950s. 

From about the middle of the decade, an increasing number of new churches – like Mother of God – adopted the language of architectural modernism in their new geometries and avoidance of conventional ecclesiastical reference. Yet, while the aim was to convey an authentic image of modernity, traditional design was not eschewed entirely in most cases at this phase. As demonstrated by the subject place, ‘modern’ places of workshop in the 1950s still often sought a level of continuity with pre-war idioms. Accordingly, established elements such as the longitudinal plan, semi-circular sanctuary, a pitched roof, insistent verticality, stained glass, emphasised mullions and muntins, and cruciform openings were all utilised to reveal the building as a place of worship, albeit in a simplified and abstracted manner.

 Mother of God is of local historical and aesthetic significance to the City of Banyule. 

 

Mother of God is of historical significance as the earliest modernist church constructed in the municipality and the first religious commission by the then young postwar architectural practice of Mockridge, Stahle & Mitchell. It represents a noteworthy juncture in the design oeuvre of this well-regarded architectural firm, which went on to be responsible for a number of other notable ‘modern’ churches in Victoria and an important event for the local Roman Catholic community. The construction of Mother of God is illustrative of Ivanhoe East’s suburban energetic consolidation in the postwar period as well as the pronounced modernist undercurrents latent in this development. Its nonconventional character is highly evocative of the necessity felt by the church and congregation to respond to the rapidly shifting and different socio-cultural landscape of the mid-1950s with a new built image of their faith. Father Bernard Joseph Geoghegan, who was appointed the first parish priest, was instrumental in its development. 

 

 Mother of God is of aesthetic significance as a generally intact, distinctive instance of ‘modern’ church design. Its progressive architects, Mockridge, Stahle & Mitchell, took bold advantage of novel postwar construction techniques (steel framing) and materials (precast concrete, silica bricks) to convey a modernist expression, chiefly through its lozenge-shaped form, exaggerated gable and dramatic but welcoming cantilevered porch, then elements all unfamiliar for places of worship in Victoria. Christian architectural traditions were not completely eschewed, with the utilisation of slate cladding, highlighting of mullions and muntins, colourful stained glass, and employment of cruciform openings in the design of the church demonstrating contemporary interests in integrating simplified, abstracted ecclesiastical elements and symbols; resulting in a balance between stability and provocation. The interplay of expressive modernity and traditional continuity is indicative of the first phase of ‘modern’ postwar suburban church design in Victoria.