page_title: Montsalvat
section_title: Early Montsalvat
hierarchical_section_title: Montsalvat / History / Early Montsalvat
caption_attribution_description: English: The Chapel at Montsalvat in 2004.
context_page_description: Montsalvat is an artist colony in Eltham, Victoria, Australia, established by Justus Jorgensen in 1934. It is home to over a dozen buildings, houses and halls set amongst richly established gardens on 48,562 m² of land. The colony of Montsalvat has a detailed history that reflects the life of Jorgensen and his friends and family; there is also a legend behind its name, while its buildings and gardens are steeped in the art and culture of Melbourne and its surroundings.
  Visitors can pay an admission fee to walk throughout the colony's historical gardens, artists' houses/workshops and explore the surrounding buildings. All of the buildings on the site were designed and built by residents with locally available materials, from various sources. The Great Hall offers an extensive network of spaces from extravagant halls and vast exhibition spaces, to small corridors and tiny balconies overlooking the gardens.
  Currently Montsalvat's grounds and buildings are mostly used for exhibitions, performances, conferences, seminars, weddings and receptions; however, many artists continue to reside in Montsalvat.
context_section_description: The Eltham district had been settled since the 1850s; some of these early pioneers had used mud bricks to build their farmhouses, but the method had long been abandoned. Jorgensen saw value in the building technique. The local soils appeared suitable for both adobe (mudbrick) and pisé de terre (rammed earth) and it was cheap, so he set his students to work. He dispatched Arthur Munday, to the State Library in Melbourne to research the technique. There was little written material available, as the methods has been handed down from father to son. Arthur finally found in the writings of the ancient Roman historian Pliny some of the information they were looking for.
  Slate for the roofs came from a friend's recently demolished house, discarded fire bricks, tiles and other material came from other sites. The recently demolished Bijou Theatre (in Bourke Street) proved a rich resource which provided the beautiful cast iron circular staircase, architrave mouldings and some of the doors and windows. Helen Lempriere's family donated materials and money to build the ornamental pond. The many doors that open onto the pond area are from the cubicles that were the students' bedrooms, which have now been combined into one long studio. (The original inhabitants' initials can be seen on the front doorstep of each room). The small bluestone tower, limestone studio and Long Gallery were added later to form the closed courtyard.
caption: The Chapel at Montsalvat.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-P72", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2004:11:07 13:27:24", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-P72", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2004:11:07 13:27:24", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "2379", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4441", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2004:11:07 13:27:24", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2004:11:07 13:27:24", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "6", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1632", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1224", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "2172", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}