Sir Roy's important to us: two of his heritage-listed buildings structure the current Mona site.

The museum entrance (the Courtyard House) and our library (the Round House) were built in 1957 and 1958 as homes for the Alcorso family. The former was inspired by Alcorso's admiration for the Roman Villa. Grounds brought to the design his passion for ordered geometry, but also fashioned an elegant warped roofline and made extensive use of glass. The Round House, Alcorso's parents' residence, radiates from a circular central chimney, and was built partly with recycled convict-hewn sandstone.

Roy also designed the National Gallery of Victoria and, um, Wrest Point Casino. Whoops.

Three storey
Two bedrooms
En suites and spa baths in each bedroom
King-size beds with 400 thread-count cotton sheets
Balcony with deep spa bath. Yessssss...
Fully equipped kitchen and laundry
Espresso machine
Wireless touch panels for climate control, information, and entertainment
iPod docking station
Sound system with lots of music
Blu-ray disc player
TVs all over the place, including in the bathroom
Personal security screen to avoid visitors you don't like
Wine bar
Bathrobes
Wireless internet
Safe
Phone
Daily housekeeping

Boyd was a social commentator as well as architect. In The Australian Ugliness, he identifies our local strain of gentility with excruciating accuracy: featurism. This hideous 'decorative technique' infects the built environment with cloying prettiness,and disguises sound, elegant function. Featurism flourishes in Australia, writes Boyd:

Perhaps the explanation is that man,sensing that the vastness of the landscape will mock any object that his handfuls of fellows can make here, avoids anything that might be considered a challenge to nature. The greater and fiercer the natural background, the prettier and prettier the artificial foreground: this way there are no unflattering comparisons, no loss of face.

Ouch.

One bedroom
King-size bed with 400 thread-count cotton sheets
Wireless touch panels for climate control, information, and entertainment
iPod docking station
Sound system with lots of music
Blu-ray disc player
TVs all over the place, including in the bathroom
Personal security screen to avoid visitors you don't like
Wine bar
Bathrobes
Wireless internet
Safe
Phone
Daily housekeeping

David Walsh, the owner of these pavilions, is clearly very interested in architecture. It all started (maybe) when he saw the old Snow's Dry Cleaners in Glenorchy, designed by Esmond Dorney, a post-war visionary, and a cult hero for the young'uns for his inspired use of light and space. Dorney went to university in Melbourne, got expelled for racing cars on campus, and worked with the Burley Griffins. At twenty three (young) he established his own practice (tricky) and moved to Hobart (brave). He stayed there for the rest of his life.

One bedroom
King-size bed with 400 thread-count cotton sheets
Wireless touch panels for climate control, information, and entertainment
iPod docking station
Sound system with lots of music
Blu-ray disc player
TVs all over the place, including in the bathroom
Personal security screen to avoid visitors you don't like
Wine bar
Bathrobes
Wireless internet
Safe
Phone
Daily housekeeping

In 1912 Walter Burley Griffin and his wife, Marion Mahony Griffin, won the international competition to design Australia's national capital, Canberra. Both were American-born and both had worked for a time with Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago. Walter Burley Griffin has been credited with the development of the L-shaped floor plan and the carport as well as the first use of reinforced concrete. His main influence on David Walsh, the owner of these pavilions, was to show that even the most lofty designs yield poor results without the chaos of iterative redesign.

Next time you feel like visiting Canberra come to Hobart instead.

Two bedroom
King-size beds with 400 thread-count cotton sheets
Wireless touch panels for climate control, information, and entertainment
iPod docking station
Sound system with lots of music
Blu-ray disc player
TVs all over the place, including in the bathroom
Personal security screen to avoid visitors you don't like
Wine bar
Bathrobes
Wireless internet
Safe
Phone
Daily housekeeping

Charles Blackman came to artistic maturity in Melbourne, part of the generation that included the slightly older Sidney Nolan and Arthur Boyd. His most popularly recognised paintings are the 'Schoolgirl' and 'Alice in Wonderland' series, completed in the 1950s. In 1959 Blackman signed the Antipodean Manifesto, a statement protesting the dominance of abstract expressionism in Australian art. Over his career he has repeatedly expressed disdain for the concept of making money from or even owning his paintings. When a journalist recently asked him why he had only prints on his walls he answered, 'I'm much too poor to own a Blackman'.

Featured artwork -
Cat on the Roof (1951)
Charles Blackman

Two bedrooms
Antiquities and ancient coins
Wireless touch panels for climate control, information, and entertainment
iPod docking station
Blu-ray disc player
Juicy TVs
Personal security screen to avoid visitors you don't like
Wine bar
Bathrobes
Wireless internet
Safe
Phone
Daily housekeeping

Brett Whiteley was one of Australia's most successful and popularly recognised artists. He was also a quote generating machine.

Art is the thrilling
Spark that beats death - that's all.

In 1962 he became the youngest artist to have a work purchased by London's Tate Gallery and in 1978 he was the first and only person to win the three best-known Australian art prizes in the same year: the Archibald, Sulman and Wynne. Heroin and drink eroded later years, and he died of an overdose at fifty-three. Luckily:

The promise of death is that I won't care or know or think or feel anything, so what happens to my work is completely meaningless.

Featured artwork -
Lavender Bay in the Rain (1974)

Two bedrooms
Antiquities and ancient coins
Wireless touch panels for climate control, information, and entertainment
iPod docking station
Blu-ray disc player
Juicy TVs
Personal security screen to avoid visitors you don't like
Wine bar
Bathrobes
Wireless internet
Safe
Phone
Daily housekeeping

Boyd was born into a bona fide artistic dynasty. He became one of Australia's most highly regarded artists, working as a painter, ceramicist and printmaker. During the 1940s he was associated with the 'Angry Penguins' group, the aim of which was to shake up the local art establishment. In 1959 he signed the 'Antipodean Manifesto' in support of modernist figurative art. However Boyd was an intensely private and spiritual person - not a great joiner of groups. He lived in London for much of his later career but maintained strong connections with Australia until his death.

Featured artwork -
Bride and Bluebeard (c. 1960-62)
Arthur Boyd

One bedroom
Antiquities and ancient coins
Wireless touch panels for climate control, information, and entertainment
iPod docking station
Blu-ray disc player
Juicy TVs
Personal security screen to avoid visitors you don't like
Wine bar
Bathrobes
Wireless internet
Safe
Phone
Daily housekeeping

Lots of people think Sir Sidney is the nation's most important artist. We agree with them.

Nolan was largely self-taught; always determined to be modern; a relentless, almost obsessive explorer and dissector of his chosen themes - from the bushranger Ned Kelly to classical antiquity, from Gallipoli to indigenous initiation rites. Nolan was a leading figure in the 'Angry Penguins' circle in Melbourne, based in the artistic and personal hothouse at 'Heide' - the home of patrons John and Sunday Reed.

We have many samples of his work at Mona - come and see them.

One bedroom
Antiquities and ancient coins
Wireless touch panels for climate control, information, and entertainment
iPod docking station
Blu-ray disc player
Juicy TVs
Personal security screen to avoid visitors you don't like
Wine bar
Bathrobes
Wireless internet
Safe
Phone
Daily housekeeping