Ghosts, Graffiti, and Growing Up: Remembering Larundel Asylum as a Melbourne Rite of Passage

The notorious 'Fear Room'

Decommissioned in the 1990s, Larundel Asylum entered a new chapter - one no longer defined by clinical routines, but by curiosity, rebellion, expression, and transformation. For many Melburnians - from creatives and wanderers to those perhaps quietly navigating their own mental health journeys - Larundel became an unlikely sanctuary. Its decaying halls and shadow-filled rooms, once symbols of confinement and control, were reimagined as a coming-of-age space for urban explorers, thrill seekers, street artists, photographers, and those simply searching for stillness or meaning. While some visitors left behind the scars of vandalism and arson, others moved through the space with gentler intent, responding to its silence with creativity and reshaping its decay into something raw and reflective - a kind of dark, contemplative art. Layers of graffiti, ranging from anarchic to poetic, turned the walls into a vast human scratch pad, capturing fragmented reflections of life, loss, identity, and imagination. For many, Larundel was more than a cluster of derelict buildings, it was a stage where curiosity, creativity, and a fascination with the macabre could roam freely.

While many of the original buildings were gradually demolished between 2011 and 2020 to make way for housing as part of a broader suburban real estate development, a few select structures have been preserved and repurposed. What remains today is not only a few bricks and gables, but the deep imprint of how a place once associated with mental illness and institutionalisation became, in its abandonment, a chaotic yet cathartic landscape of unfiltered self-expression.

Built in the 1930’s at the outset of the Second World War, Larundel was originally conceived as a replacement for the aging Kew Asylum, but wartime necessity rerouted its initial purpose. During the war years, the partially completed buildings served multiple interim roles, most notably as a training facility for the Australian Air Force and, later, as temporary emergency housing.

In the 1950’s, eight new rehabilitation wards were constructed, each capable of housing 45 patients. New nurses homes were built along with two main admission wards to allow for mixed-gender treatment, a progressive step at the time.  One of these admission wards was dedicated to younger patients, many diagnosed with schizophrenia whom were undergoing insulin shock therapy - a common but controversial treatment of the period.

Part of the hospital was soon designated as a rehabilitation centre, aimed at individuals considered likely to reintegrate into society with further care. This addition reflected a gradual shift in the institutional mind-set - from indefinite containment toward the possibility of discharge and community-based recovery.

In its abandoned state, Larundel’s unsettling atmosphere was intensified by dense layers of dark-themed graffiti, transforming the asylum into something resembling an unintentional, almost theme park–like haunted attraction. It evoked the eerie sensation of a ghost train that had broken down mid-ride, leaving visitors to walk the rest of the way on foot—through dim, echoing corridors steeped in the surreal and the grotesque. The effect was somewhere between an amusement park haunted house and a creepy distorted dream - immersive, disconcerting, and charged with a dark curiosity. Stark images of skulls, cryptic messages, and nightmarish figures loomed from the walls, guiding visitors through a maze of visual unease. Each corridor told its own twisted story, blending the real-life decay of the building with imagined horrors sprayed in bold colour. This fusion of macabre art and ruin created an experience that was both thrilling and deeply disorienting, where every turn felt like a descent deeper into a haunted labyrinth.

Remembered by many Melbourne youths as a ‘Halloween thrill-ride’ rite of passage, navigating Larundel was more than mere exploration, it was an immersive, playfully macabre sensory journey where reality intertwined with urban legend.