Chiesa di Santa Maria Liberatrice

The Chiesa di Santa Maria Liberatrice stands in Milan's Vigentino-Morivione quarter, an area that expanded fast after the Second World War. During the war, Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster made a vow: a new parish church for Mary once peace returned. That vow took shape here as the neighbourhood grew, and the first stone went into the ground in 1956. Giovanni Battista Montini, later Pope Paul VI, laid it, and the consecration followed in 1958.

Ezio Cerutti designed the church, and its facade stops you first. A porticoed structure veils the entire front in a grid-like pattern. Part of the facade is exposed brick laid in a honeycomb pattern, and part carries mosaics by the painter Carlo Varese. They show the Madonna enthroned with the child, scenes of the people's wartime suffering, and the cardinal dedicating the church. The Duomo rises in the background of that dedication scene. Inside, you step into a central hexagonal plan with a single nave. Reinforced concrete pillars carry a vaulted ceiling, and exposed brick lines the walls. No traditional apse closes the interior: the altar and presbytery stand slightly elevated instead.

Ferdinando Monzio Compagnoni frescoed the apse wall with scenes of war devastation, an angel banishing the enemy, and the triumphant Christ. Milanese saints and angels join him, and the Basilica of Sant'Ambrogio stands in the painted background. This building sits outside the usual tourist circuits. The local community cherishes it all the more, a modern counterpart to the ancient parish church of the Assunta.