The Sri Lankan Architect Geoffrey Bawa is now regarded as having been one of the most important and influential Asian architects of the twentieth century. His international standing was confirmed in 2001 when he received the special chairman’s award in the eighth cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, becoming onl y the third architect and the first non-Moslem to be so honoured since the award’s inception.
Bawa was born in 1919 and came late to architecture, only qualifying in 1957 at the age of thirty-eight, thirty-eight, but he soon established himself as Sri Lanka’s most prolific and inventive architect, laying down a canon o f prototypes for buildings in a tropical Asian c ontext. Although best known for his private houses and hotels, his portfolio also included schools and universities, factories and offices, public buildings and social buildings as well as the new Sri Lanka Parliament. His architectural career spanned forty years and was e nded in 1998 by illness. He died in 2003. Bawa’s work is characterised by sensitivity to site and context. He produced “sustainable architecture” long before the term was coined, and had developed his own “regional modernist” stance well in advance of the theoreticians. His designs broke down the barriers between inside and outside, between interior design and landsc ape architecture and reduced buildings b uildings to a series of scenographically conceived spaces separated by courtyards and gardens. One of his most striking achievements is his own garden at Lunuganga, which he h e fashioned from an abandoned rubber estate. This project occupied him for fifty years, and h e used it as a test bed for his emerging ideas. The result is a series of ou tdoor rooms conceived with an exquisite sense of theatre as a civilised wilderness on a quiet backwater in the greater garden of Sri Lanka.
Early life Geoffrey Bawa was born in 1919. His father was Justice B. W. Bawa a wealthy and successful lawyer, of Muslim and English parentage, and his mother, Bertha Marianne Schrader, was of mixed German, Scottish and Sinhalese descent. He had one older brother Bevis Bawa who became a renowned landscaper.
Education He was educated at Royal College, Colombo after which he studied English and Law, 1938, at St Catharine's College, Cambridge gaining a BA (English Literature Tripos) and went on to read law at Middle Temple, London becoming a Barrister in 1944. Returning to Ceylon, after World War II, he started working for a Colombo Law firm. After the death of his mother he left the profession and soon left to travel for two years in 1946, going to the Far East, across the United [4] States and finally to Europe and almost settling in Italy. By this time he was 28 years old and had spent one-third of his life away from Sri Lanka. His plans to buy an Italian villa and settle down did not happen, and in 1948 returned to Sri Lanka. On the south-west coast of the island, between Colombo and Galle, Bawa bought an abandoned rubber estate at Lunuganga planning to creating an Italian garden from a tropical wilderness. However h e soon found that his ideas were compromised by his lack of technical knowledge. In 1951 he was apprenticed to H.H. Reid, the sole surviving partner of the Colombo architectural practice Edwards, Reid and Begg. In 1952 Reid suddenly died and Bawa returned to England and, after spending a year at Cambridge, enrolled as a student at the Architectural Association in London, where he is remembered as the tallest, oldest and most outspoken student of his ge neration. In 1957 at the age of 38 he returned [5] to Sri Lanka qualified as an architect to take over what was left of Reid's practice.
Career in architecture He became apprenticed to the architectural practice of Edwards Reid and Begg in Colombo after he advanced his education in architecture by gaining a Diploma in Architecture from Architectural Association, London in 1956 and in the following year he became an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects whereupon he returned to Ceylon becoming a partner of Messrs. Edwards, Reid and Begg, Colombo in 1958. In 1959 Danish architect Ulrik Plesner joined the firm and the two created many buildings together in their distinct style, sometimes [6] called tropical modernism. Plesner left the island in 1967. Bawa became an Associate of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects in 1960. An ensuing close association with a coterie of likeminded artists and designers, including Ena de Silva, Barbara Sansoni and Laki Senanayake, produced a new awareness of indigenous materials and crafts, leading to a post colonial renaissance of culture.
List of works Geoffrey Bawa's work range mainly in Sri Lanka, however he has worked in several other countries as well: nine times in India, three times in Indonesia, twice in Mauritius and once in
Japan, Pakistan, Fiji, Egypt and Singapore. His works include houses, hotels, schools, clubs, [7] offices and government buildings, most notably the Sri Lankan Parliament Building. 1940s
1980s Lunuganga, Bentota (1948 – 1998)
1950s
St. Thomas' Preparatory School, Colombo (1957 – 1964) Carmen Gunasekera House, Colombo (1958) Kanangara House, Colombo (1959) Club House, Ratnapura (1959) Deraniyagala House, Colombo (1959) Wimal Fernando House, Colombo (1959) Jayawardena house, Colombo (1959 – 1960) Ekala Industrial Estate, Ja ela (1959 – 1960) A.S.H. De Silva House, Galle (1959 – 1960) Manager's Bungalow, Maskeliya (1959 – 1960) Wijewardene House, Colombo (1959 – 1964)
1960s
Osmund and Ena de Silva House, Colombo (1960 – 62) 1990s Bishop's College, Colombo (1960 – 1963) 33rd Lane, Colombo (1960 – 1998) Banyan Tree Hotel, Tanjung Chapel for the Good Sheperd Convent, Pinang, Indonesia (1991) Bandarawela (1961 – 1962) Kandalama Hotel, Dambulla House for Dr. Bartholomeusz, Colombo (1991 – 1994) (1961 – 1963) Jayakody House, Colombo, House for Chris and Carmel Raffel, Colombo Colombo (1991 – 1996) (1962 – 1964) Sarabhai House, Ahmedabad, Pim and Pam Fernando House, Colombo India (1992) (1963) Modi House, Delhi, India (1992) St. Bridget's Montessori School, Colombo Jayakody House, Bentota, Bentota (1963 – 1964) (1993) Polontalawa Estate Bungalow, Polontalawa Poddar House, Bangalore, India (1963 – 1965) (1994) Hilton Hotel, Colombo, Colombo (1965) Kani Lanka Resort & Spa, Madurai Boys' Town, Madurai, India (1965 – Kalutara (1994 – 1996) 1967) Lighthouse Hotel, Galle (1995 – Yahapath Endera Farm School, Hanwella 1997) (1965 – 1971) Blue Water Hotel, Colombo Coral Gardens Hotel additions and
University of Ruhuna, Matara (1980 – 1988) Galadari Hotel, Islamabad, Pakistan (1984) Sunetra Bandaranaike House, Horagolla (1984 – 1986) Offices for Banque Indosuez, Colombo (1985) Fitzherbert House, Tangalle (1985 – 1986) De Soysa House, Colombo (1985 – 1991) Bashir Currimjee House, Port Louis, Mauritius (1986 – 1994) Hyatt Hotel, Sanur , Sanur , Indonesia (1989) Larry Gordon House, Wakaya, Fiji (1989) Singapore Cloud Centre, Singapore, Singapore (1989)
renovations, Hikkaduwa (1966) Steel Corporation Offices, Oruwela (1966 – 1969) Bentota Beach Hotel, Bentota (1967 – 1969) Pieter Keuneman House, Colombo (1967 – 1969) Serendib Hotel, Bentota (1967 – 1970) Yala Beach Hotel, Yala (1968) Mahahalpe Farm, Kandy (1969) Ceylon Pavilion 1970 World Fair , Osaka, Japan (1969 – 1970)
Unbuilt
1970s
(1996 – 1998) Official Residence of the President, Kotte (1997-) Pradeep Jayewardene House, Mirissa (1997 – 1998) [disambiguation needed ] Spencer House , Colombo (1998) Jacobsen House, Tangalle (?)
Pallakele Industrial Estate, Pallekele (1970 – 1971) P.C. de Saram Terrace Houses, Colombo (1970 – 1973) Science Block , Nugegoda (1971) Madurai Club, Madurai, India (1971 – 1974) - it has been renamed as Heritage Madurai. Hotel Connamara Remodelling, Chennai, India (1971 – 1976) Club Mediterranee, Nilaveli (1972) Stanley de Saram House, Colombo (1972) Batujimbar Pavilions, Sanur , Indonesia (1972 – 1975) Peter White House, Pereybere, Mauritius (1973 – 1974) Neptune Hotel, Beruwala (1973 – 1976) Agrarian Research and Training Institute, Colombo (1974 – 1976) Hotel at Pondicherry, Puducherry, India (1975) Seema Malaka, Colombo (1976 – 1978) State Mortgage Bank , Colombo (1976 – 1978) Candoline Hotel, Goa, India (1977) Panama Hotel, Panama (1977) Martenstyn House, Colombo (1977 – 1979) Meena Muttiah Hospital for the Kumarni of Chettinad, Chennai, India (1978) House for Lidia Gunasekera, Bentota (1978 – 1980) Institute for Integral Education, Piliyandala (1978 – 1981) Club Villa Hotel, Bentota (1979) Samy House, Dahshur , Egypt (1979)
U.N. Headquarters, Malé, Malé, Maldives (1985)
Triton Hotel, Ahungalla (1979 – 1981) Sri Lankan Parliament Building, Kotte (1979 – 1982)
Awards and Fellowships
Pan Pacific Citation, Hawaii Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (1967) President, Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (1969) Inaugural Gold Medal at the Silver Jubilee Celebration of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (1982) Heritage Award of Recognition, for “Outstanding Architectural Design in the Tradition of Local Vernacular Architecture”, for the new Parliamentary Complex at Sri Jayawardenepura, Kotte from the Pacific Area Travel Association. (1983) Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects Elected Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (1983) Conferred title of Vidya Jothi (Light of Science) in the Inaugural Honours List of the President of Sri Lanka (1985) Teaching Fellowship at the Aga Khan Programme for Architecture, at MIT, Boston, USA (1986) Conferred title Deshamanya (Pride of the Nation) in the Honours List of the President Sri Lanka (1993) The Grate Master's Award 1996 incorporating South Asian Architecture Award (1996) The Architect of the Year Award, India (1996) Asian Innovations Award, Bronze Award – Architecture, Far Eastern Economic Review (1998) The Chairman's Award of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in recognition of a lifetime's achievement in and contribution to the field of architecture (2001) Awarded Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa), University of Ruhuna (14 September 2002)
Bawa's childhood days
Geoffrey Bawa was born in 1919 in Ceylon to wealthy parents of mixed European and Ceylonese descent. He c late to architecture at 38 years. After reading En glish at Cambridge and Law in London , he was called to the Ba 1944. After the war, Bawa joined a Colombo Law firm, leaving it shortly after to travel widel y for two years, al settling in Italy . However, he returned to Ceylon in 1948, though now with a more European perspective. He bo an old rubber estate off Bentota called Lunuganga. His dream of transforming tropical chaos into a n Italian gard stalled for lack of expertise. This proved the catalyst for change. He became apprenticed to the architectural prac of Edwards Reid and Begg in Colombo . After qualifying at the Architectural Association, London in 1952, he returned to steer Reid's practice. An ensuing close association with a coterie of like-minded artists and designers including Ena de Silva, Barbara Sansoni and Laki Senanayake, produced a new awareness of indigenous materi and crafts, leading to a post colonial renaissance of culture. Youth
Ulrik Plesner and K Poologasundaram were significant partners. The former a young Danish architect, worked closely with Bawa from 1959 until 1967. The latter was an engineer who was with him for the next twenty years establishing the practice as the most reputed and p roductive in the island. Their portfolio cove red a great range o briefs, establishing prototypes for each area in the process. Bawa's standing was endorsed when he was asked to design the new Parliament at Kotte in 1979 and the Ruhunu University near Matara in the 1980s. These projects brought wider international recognition but left him exhausted. He was 70 and ending his partnership. He started designing with a small, young team from his Colombo home where many ambitious plans were made though no built. Some ideas from these test beds bore fruit in three later hotels: the Kandalama, the Lighthouse and the Blu Water. Bawa worked into his eighties, producing modernist masterpieces that are hi ghly evocative of tradition. last house was a retreat on the cliffs of Mirissa. In 1998, a massive stroke left Bawa paralysed and robbed him of the ability to speak. Led by Channa Daswatte office continued the projects that were in hand. Geoffrey Bawa died on 27th May 2003 and was cremated on the Cinnamon Hill at his beloved Lunuganga. AWARDS 1919
Born
1941
Bachelor of Arts (English Literature Tripos) Cambridge
1943
Barrister-at-Law, Middle Temple , London
1956
Diploma in Architecture, Architectural Association, London
1957
Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects
1958
Partner of Messrs. Edwards, Reid and Begg, Colombo
1960
Associate of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects
1967
Pan Pacific Citation from the Hawaii Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for “A Singula Individuality and Excellence in Design”
1969
President, Sri Lanka Institute of Architects
1982
Recipient of the Inaugural Gold Medal at the Silver Jubilee Celebration of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects
1983
Recipient of the Pacific Area Travel Association “Heritage Award of Recognition”, for “Outstandin Architectural Design in the Tradition of Local Vernacular Architecture”, for the new Parliamentary Complex at Sri Jayawardenepura, Kotte Elected Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects
1985
Conferred title of “Vidya Jothi” (Light of Science) in the Inaugural Honours List of the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
1986
Teaching Fellowship at the Aga Khan Programme for Architecture, at MIT, Boston , USA Reserve Judge at the International Competition for the Indira Gandhi Memorial, New Delhi Advisor to the Government of Fiji on Restoration of the Old Capital Guest Speaker at the Second Regional Seminar of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture on “Architecture in South Asia ”, Dhaka , Bangladesh
1987
Guest Speaker at the ARCASIA Forum on “My Architecture”, Bali , Indonesia
1989
Member of the Master Jury for the Fourth Aga Khan Award for Architecture Guest Speaker at the Malaysian Institute of Architects, Singapore Institute of Architects, Commonwealth Association of the Architects International Conference, “Architecture and To urism Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
1990
Guest Speaker at the Royal Australian Institute of Architects Conference, “Architecture in Isolation Perth , Australia and Kuala Lumpur
1993
Conferred title “Deshamanya” (Pride of the Nation) in the Honours List of the President of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
1996
Keynote Speaker at the XIII International UIA/UNESCO Seminar on “Affordable Educational Spac for All”, Bombay , India (February 1996) Awarded “The Grate Master's Award 1996” incorporating South Asian Architecture Award, promot by the Architect of the Year Award, India
1998
Asian Innovations Award, Bronze Award – Architecture, Far Eastern Economic Review (October 1997)
2001
The Chairman's Award of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in recognition of a lifetime's achievement in and contribution to the field of architecture
2002
Awarded Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa), University of Ruhuna ( 14 th Septemb
Geoffrey Bawa, who has died aged 83, was Sri Lanka's most prolific and influential architect and one of the most important Asian architects of his generation. In the late 1950s, soon after starting work, he bought a row of four tiny bungalows in a narrow lane in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, and began to convert them, one by one, into a single house for himself. It was a project that would dem onstrate his ability to bring together elements from different times and places in order to create something n ew and original. Over the years, Bawa used this house as his space laboratory, creating an introspective warren o f courtyards, loggias and verandahs. There were roo ms without roofs, roofs without walls, pergolas, trellises, pools and fountains. Finally, he capped the composition with a white modernist tower, an echo of Corbusier's Maison Citrohan, which served as a periscope giving glimpses out across the clatter of neighbouring roofs towards the Indian ocean. Born in what was then the British colony of Ceylon, Bawa was the son of a wealthy Muslim lawyer and his wife, a woman of mixed Dutch descent. He came to Britain in 1938 to read English at Cambridge University and study law in London. Returning to Ceylon in 1946, he worked briefly for a Colombo law firm, but after th e death of his mother he abandoned the legal profession and set off on two years of restless travel. During this time, Bawa experienced the crisis of identity that affected so many of the "people -in between" at the end of empire. However, in 1948, as Ceylon gained independenc e (it became Sri Lanka in 1972), he sailed home and bought a derelict rubber estate at Lunuganga, near Bentota, with the aim of transforming it into a tropical evocation of an Italian garden. He soon discovered that his ambitions were frustrated by his lack of technical knowledge, and embarked on a trial architectural apprenticeship with HH Reid in Colombo. After Reid's death in 1952, Bawa enrolled at the Architectural Association, in London, qualifying in 1957, at the age of 38. Back in Colombo, he took over what was left of Reid's practice and gathered together a group of young architects and artists to join him in his search for a new, vital - and yet essentially Sri Lankan - architecture. His group included the batik artist Ena de Silva, the designer Barbara Sansoni and the artist Laki Senanayake. In 1959, Bawa was joined by Ulrik Plesner, a young Danish architect who brought with him an appreciation of Scandinavian design and detailing, and a curiosity about Sri Lanka's building traditions. The two men formed a close friendship, and a working partnership that lasted until 1967, when Plesner returned to Europe. Bawa was then joined by the Tamil engineer K Poologasundram, who was to remain his partner for the next 20 years. Bawa's portfolio of work included religious, social, cultural, educational, gov ernmental, commercial and residential buildings, and in each of these areas he established a canon of new prototypes. Early experiments in what was known as tropical modernism were tempered by a growing interest in the traditional architecture and building materials of Sri Lanka.
This led to the development of an architecture that was a blend of both modern and traditional, of east and west, of formal and picturesque, th at broke down the barriers between inside and outside, between building and landscape, and that offered a blueprint for new ways to live and work in a tropical city. The house Bawa built for Ena de Silva in 1962 demonstrated a potent alternative to the colonial bungalow; the rooms turn their backs on the outside world and focus into a large central courtyard, inspired in equal measure by the atria of ancient Rome and by Kandyan manor houses. The Bentota Beach Hotel, of 1970, was one of the first of Sri Lanka's purpose-built resort hotels - offering modern creature comforts in a traditional setting - an d served as a powerful inspiration for the deluge of similar buildings that followed. Bawa's educational designs culminated in his masterly work for the new University of Ruhunu, on a coastal site near Matara, a project that occupied him for much of the 1980s. Here, a network of pavilions, loggias, courtyards and terraces are distributed with casual artfulness across a pair of rocky hills, demonstrating the architect's consummate skill at merging bu ildings with landscape. In 1979, Bawa was commissioned to design Sri Lanka's new parliament building, at Kotte, on the outskirts of Colombo. Before the project was completed, in 1982, a swamp had been dredged to create an island site at the centre of a vast artificial lake, symbolising the great irrigation works of the classical period. Seen from a distance, the asymmetric composition of copper-roofed pavilions seems to float from a series of stepped terraces that rise out of the water, creating an effect both gentle and monumental. There are references to classical Sri Lankan monastic architecture, to Kandyan temples and to the palace architecture of Kerala, but none of these are literal, and the result is wholly contemporary in spirit. Paradoxically, the main chamber is based on the Westminster model: government and opposition members face each other across the axis of the speaker's chair, beneath a silver palm-frond chandelier hanging from a tent-like ceiling of glittering metal tiles. When Bawa closed his practice at the end of the 1980s, it was widely assumed he would retire to Lunuganga to contemplate his garden. However, in 1990, working from his Colombo home, he began producing a steady stream of fresh designs with a small group of young architects: in 1996, he completed the Kandalama Hotel on a site looking across an ancient reservoir towards the distant citadel of Sigiriya; the following year, his minimalist design for a house on the cliffs at Mirissa finally confounded those critics who had pigeonholed him as a vernacular regionalist. Here, bedrooms and services are housed beneath a raised plinth, while a thin metal deck floats on a cluster of slender concrete columns to create a simple, open-sided loggia within a grove of coconut palms. Bawa's two personal properties hold the key to understanding his work: the garden at Lunuganga, which he continued to fashion for almost 50 years, and his town house in Colombo. The two function as complementary opposites: the town house is a haven of peace, locked away
within a busy, and increasingly hostile, city; in co ntrast, Lunuganga is a distant retreat, challenging the ocean horizon to the west and the switchback of hills to the east, reducing a wild landscape to a controlled series of outdoor rooms. Since Bawa began his work, the illusion of communal harmony in Sri Lanka has been shattered by a bloody civil war. But although it might be thought that his ideas have had no direct impact on the lives of ordinary people, they have, in fact, encouraged them to value their disappearing traditions and helped them come to terms with the contradictions of their changing world. Bawa received the Aga Khan's special award for arch- itecture in 2001. The omission of any official accolade in Britain was partially put to rights in 19 98 by Prince Charles, who slipped away from the 50th anniverary celebrations of Sri Lanka's independence to pay a personal tribute to the ailing architect at Lunuganga. • Geoffrey Manning Bawa, architect, born July 23 1919; died May 27 2003
