Historical information

As a Principal of Stephenson and Turner, Ellison Harvie?s 1959 design for the proposed new club rooms of the Lyceum Club, Melbourne has an elegance typical of late 1950s modernism. Harvie attended Swinburne Technical College and then, from 1925 to 1928, the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier where she excelled, becoming the first woman to receive a diploma of architectural design from that institution. Harvie was an advocate for the professional development of women in architecture and was a mentor to younger women. She was President of the Lyceum Club from 1963 to 1965. The Club had been established in 1912 for women graduates and those who had distinguished themselves in public service. The watercolour perspective is held in the archive of Berenice Harris, whose last major project was a renovation and extension to the Lyceum Club in the 1980s.