Geoffrey Bawa INTRODUCTION The Sri Lankan Architect Deshamanya Geoffrey Bawa is now regarded as having been one of the most important and influential Asian architects of the twentieth century. Having come to the profession only when in his late 30's,Bawa has built an astonishing number of works, primarily in his home country but also in the South Asia region. His international standing was finally confirmed in 2001 when he received the special chairman’s award in the eighth cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, becoming only the third architect and the first non-Moslem to be so honored 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, but he soon established himself as Sri Lanka’s most prolific and inventive architect, laying down a canon of prototypes for buildings in a tropical Asian context. 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 ended in 1998 by a stroke which left him paralyzed. He died in 2003. Bawa’s work is characterized 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 landscape architecture and reduced buildings to a series of Vishnu S 1
Transcript
Geoffrey Bawa
INTRODUCTION The Sri Lankan Architect Deshamanya Geoffrey Bawa is now regarded as having been one of the most important and influential Asian architects of the twentieth century. Having cometo the profession only when in his late 30's,Bawa has built an astonishing number of works, primarily in his home country but also in the South Asia region. His international standing was finally confirmed in 2001 when he received the special chairman’s award in the eighth cycle of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture, becoming only the third architect and the first non-Moslem to be so honored 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, but he soon established himself as Sri Lanka’s most prolific and inventive architect, laying down a canon of prototypes for buildings in a tropical Asian context. 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 ended in 1998 by a stroke which left him paralyzed. He died in 2003.
Bawa’s work is characterized 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 landscape architecture and reduced buildings 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 fashioned from an abandoned rubber estate. This project occupied him for fifty years, and he used it as a test bed for his emerging ideas. The result is a series of outdoor rooms conceived with an exquisite sense of theatre as a civilized wilderness on a quiet backwater in the greater garden of Sri Lanka.
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ARCHITECTURAL STYLE
Geoffrey Bawa had a passion for the island’s varying natural landscapes, scenes that he used as the focal points around which he created his buildings. The end result was a unique architectural style that erased boundaries between the `outside’ and `inside’ of living and working spaces. With skilful positioning of the built environment to take optimum advantage of the surrounding vistas, Bawa’s architecture shows great appreciation of natural elements; the tropical sun, ocean breeze, lush greenery and flowing water. With these considered, Bawa makes seamless transitions of the outside environment to beautiful structures allowing comfortable and enhanced daily life. Wide courtyards, shaded walkways and open verandahs feature heavily in his design. All these elements contributed to a unique architectural style – a legacy that will continue to influence, educate, and develop the creative minds of generations of Sri Lankan architects. The intense devotion he brings to composing his architecture in an intimate relationship with nature is witnessed by his attention to landscape and vegetation, the crucial setting for his architecture. His sensitivity to environment is reflected in his careful attention to the sequencing of space, the creation of vistas, courtyards, and walkways, the use of materials and treatment of details.His architecture is a subtle blend of modernity and tradition, East and West, formal and picturesque; he has broken down the artificial segregation of inside and outside, building and landscape; he has drawn on tradition to create an architecture that is fitting to its place, and he has also used his vast knowledge of the modern world to create an architecture that is of its time.Although it might be thought that his buildings have had no direct impact on the lives of ordinary people, Bawa has exerted a defining influence on the emerging architecture of independent Sri Lanka and on successive generations of younger architects. His ideas have spread across the island, providing a bridge between the past and the future, a mirror in which ordinary people can obtain a clearer image of their own evolving culture.
He produced “sustainable architecture” long before the term was coined, and had developed his own “regional modernist” stance well in advance of the theoreticians.
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Early work in Tropical Modernism
Strathspey Estate Bungalow, Upcott,1959 Bishop’s College Classrooms, Colombo, 1959
Bawa's early work included office buildings, factories and schools and was influenced by the 'Tropical Modernism’ of Fry and Drew and ultimately by the work of le Corbusier. Typical of projects from this period are the remote Strathspey Tea Estate Bungalow at the foot of Adam’s Peak, and the classroom extension for Bishop’s College in Colombo.
In the classroom block for Bishops College the interiors were protected by perforated external wall panels which were supported on a concrete portal frame and inserted between the exposed beam-ends to give an impression of extreme lightness and delicacy. A heavy horizontal eaves beam was hung out to protect the facade and to mask the pitched roof, thus accentuating the horizontality and modernist credentials of the design.
Houses for a Tropical City
Carmen Gunesekera House, Colombo, 1958 Upali Wijewardene House, Colombo, 1959
For more than a century Sri Lankan domestic architecture had been heavily influence by British taste.The typical British 'bungalow' was a pavilion on one or two floors, cellular in plan, extrovert in concept and located at the centre of a large garden plot. However the population of Sri Lanka was exploding and Colombo was rapidly evolving from leafy Garden City into modern Asian metropolis. As land prices rose so plot sizes shrank and the British bungalow could no longer guarantee privacy or provide adequate ventilation.
In his first houses built at the end of the 1950s, such as that for Carmen Gunesekera (1958) Bawa deconstructed the colonial bungalow and rearranged its constituent parts in such a way as to create semi-enclosed spaces. A second series of 'frame houses', designed with Plesner and inspired perhaps by Scandinavian models, used a concrete frame to support covered terraces, garden courts and planted roof gardens and was typified by the houses built for Upali Wijewardene (1959) and Aelian Kanangara (1959).
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Geoffrey Bawa’s personal spaces:Lunuganga - a garden retreat that was originally an old rubber plantation that Geoffrey Bawa transformed into a haven of peace, was a lifelong project cherished by Bawa that he continued to develop for almost 50 years. This was a personal journey that helped to inspire his creativity. Lunuganga, opened as an exclusive boutique hotel in December 2005, offers guests a rare opportunity to step inside the private life of one of the world’s most celebrated architects. After decades of careful, exquisite, creative thought and design, Bawa’s legacy and perhaps most personal life’s work is today a wondrous and inspiring place to visit and savour. With astonishing views and beautiful interiors, many original Bawa artworks and blueprints on the walls, a stay in one of Lunuganga’s six fine suites is guaranteed to be a highlight of any holiday in Sri Lanka.
Paradise Road Gallery café - currently one of Sri Lanka’s leading restaurants, the Gallery Café used to be the office of Geoffrey Bawa. His imprint remains strong - courtyards with columns, ponds, walkways and open pavilions – spaces that inspired a creative genius. The premises now provide for a memorable dining experience that also serves as an art gallery that promotes the creative talents of young artists.
Hotels & villas designed by Bawa: Heritance Ahungalla - an early creation of Bawa which was completed in 1981, Heritance Ahungalla is situated on the south coast just minutes away from the historic city of Galle. The hotel is approached through a long stretch of roadway off the main Galle Road, which provides for a dramatic entrance with views across the infinity pool edging the sea. The main areas on the ground as well as upper floors are designed as linked open pavilions - all with continuous views of the sea. Bawa uses his signature architectural style that erases boundaries between the `outside' and `inside', resulting in plenty of access to the natural elements - the tropical sun, ocean breeze, lush greenery and flowing water.
Heritance Kandalama - a minimalist, eco-friendly hotel situated in the Cultural Triangle in the North Central province, was designed by Bawa in 1994. Heritance Kandalama is an architectural masterpiece. Bawa conceived this hotel `as an austere jungle palace'. The minimalist interiors and the building itself are cleverly designed to blend into the landscape without interfering with the tranquil natural evolution of its surroundings. Bawa has allowed for magnificent views of the ancient Sigiriya Rock, the surrounding mountains and the Kandalama Tank (reservoir). Hidden within the edge of the jungle environmental awards for its role in nurturing Sri Lanka's cultural heritage and natural beauty.
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Lighthouse Hotel – situated just before Galle town on the south coast, Lighthouse Hotel is located on a rocky headland overlooking the Indian Ocean. This magnificent boutique hotel conveys an immediate sense of Galle’s history. The Portuguese landing at Galle is re-enacted in brass and bronze on the impressive main staircase and an ambitious batik of ancient coats of arms fills the ceiling of the restful main bar. The hotel design demonstrates Bawa’s skill at integrating architecture and landscape.
Public buildings designed by Bawa:
Matara’s Ruhuna University - An inspiring creation by Bawa for the younger generation of Sri Lanka, the Ruhuna University enabled Bawa to explore his style of integrating work spaces into the natural landscape. Built between two hills, this university campus consists of pavilions and courtyards with breath taking ocean views.
Parliament of Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka’s Parliament building in Kotte, which the President at the time commissioned Bawa to design in 1979, was created in the centre of a vast manmade lake. The building incorporates traditional Sri Lankan and South Indian architectural features with a series of pavilions with copper roofs.
To conclude our tribute to this great architect and remarkable person, I propose to dwell briefly on his lifelong project – his home and garden at Lunuganga.
BAWA’s JEWEL (Lunuganga):
It is the making of a “world within a world” in idealised seclusion, and yet paradoxically, establishing a true belonging with a land and its history. A combination of natural settings, buildings and pavilions, which evolved over a period of 40 years; it was a constant activity of shaping, adding and altering, living out, as it were, a romance of a gently changing world of peace and tranquillity, in a place of great natural beauty whose nuances were closely felt and understood deeply.
One of his most striking achievements is his own garden at Lunuganga which he fashioned from an abandoned rubber estate.
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This project occupied him for fifty years, and he used it as a test bed for his emerging ideas. The result is a series of outdoor rooms conceived with an exquisite sense of theatre as a civilized wilderness on a quiet backwater in the greater garden of Sri Lanka.
The garden at Lunuganga sits astride two low hills on a promontory which juts out into a brackish lagoon lying off the estuary of the Bentota River. In 1948, when Bawa first bought it, there was nothing here but an undistinguished bungalow surrounded by ten hectares of rubber plantation. Since then hills have been moved, terraces have been cut, woods have been replanted and new vistas have been opened up, but the original bungalow still survives within its cocoon of added verandas, courtyards, and loggias. To the north of the house lawns run down to the edge of a cliff which looks out across the lake. To the east a secluded terrace is defined be a series of pavilions Bawa’s office, a sculpture courts a small gallery. Steps lead down to the Cliff and the Broad Walk and eventually to the water gardens, with their checkerboard squares of rice paddy.To the west, hemmed in by forest, is the Field of Jars which leads up to the Cinnamon Hill and the southern edge of the peninsula.
The social setting of this lived dream was a society of generosity and acceptance, where sophisticated and educated men and women with widely differing ethnic origins had learnt to weave the many strands of their inheritance into an elegant way of life with, as someone said, “ Great style and humorous balance”. Geoffrey Bawa himself is quoted as saying once, when talking of the making of Lunuganga that “It was not tied to any other world except people enjoying themselves within their capabilities.”
The places and rooms made in this inhabited landscape respond also to the many rituals of gracious living attended by simple comforts and conveniences – rituals of arrival and reception, of bathing, of shared meals and convivial conversation, or solitary study and contemplation. And the objects that form an integral part of these rituals of daily life, or stand by as companions, speak of layers of association with distant pasts, of remembered friendships, and above all of a kinship with the minds who moved caressing hands to fashion their characterful presence.
For many years the garden had grown gradually into a place of many moods, the result of many imaginings, some simple, some complex, offering a retreat to be alone or to fellow feel with
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friends, whilst an added pleasure is one of seeing and feeling the reactions to this place, from puzzlement to the silence of contentment.
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)
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