Espace des Augustins

For the record...

Before becoming a cultural facility with a performance hall and an exhibition hall, the Espace des Augustins went through many adventures. For the record...

- 1256: Birth of the mendicant order of hermits of Saint Augustine.
- 1335 - 1345: Arrival in Montauban of the first 14 Augustinian brothers, owners of a considerable enclosure which went as far as the current rue du Chanoine Miquel.
- 1345: Start of work on a Gothic church.
- 1561: Fire of the Augustinian church and its convent buildings during the wars of religion. Departure from Montauban of the Augustinian monks.
- 1662: Return of the Augustinians to the city.
- 1665 - 1689: Construction of the temporary chapel (current location) and the Augustinian convent with its unique cloister gallery (Nautica swimming pool side today).
- 1729: Construction of the chapel.
- 1766: terrible flood of the Tarn taking the chapel with it.
- 1769: Laying of the first stone of the new church (current location). Third project: the construction of the cloister will never be completed due to lack of credit.
- 1791: The Augustinians are expelled from their convent under revolutionary laws and the building, sold as national property, is acquired by Pierre Bergis, Protestant merchant from Villebourbon. He rehabilitated the convent into a private mansion and donated the church to the Protestant community, becoming a temple. The building therefore finds itself separated in two.
- 1791 - 1980: The private mansion belongs to the Bergis family who ceded it to their grandson, Gustave Garrisson, senator-mayor of Montauban.
- End of the 20th century: The temple is acquired by the Departmental Council of Tarn-et-Garonne which decides to rehabilitate the old religious building into a place for exchange and cultural awareness with performance and exhibition halls.
- 2008: Start of rehabilitation work.
- October 22, 2010: Inauguration of the Espace des Augustins, the departmental cultural space, open to all audiences.

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