Grieve Gillett Architects were humbled by the great privilege and huge responsibility to design the installation of an historic pipe organ onto the gallery at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral in Adelaide.

The two greatest challenges faced were to fit the mass of equipment and pipework into the available gallery space without compromising the existing historic fabric, and designing the casework to relate to the historic
internal detailing whilst allowing it to clearly read as a contemporary insertion.

In designing the pipe organ casework Grieve Gillett Architects referenced the existing masonry column features and gallery edge woodwork to develop in timber a rigorous and sensitive interpretation of the historic fabric of the cathedral. The final result was built to the requisite high standards of craftsmanship in keeping with the gothic tradition of the historic building. The project fulfilled the brief, was within budget and thanks also to the entire project team, generations of future worshipers should be uplifted by both the sight and the sound of the new pipe organ at St. Francis Xavier Cathedral.