/r--l c()flic\ Beu';L is Sri Lanka's most prolilic ancl influential ar-

( -ctritcct.

His rvork l-lrs hacl tremenclous impact upolr\-.t architcctrrre throtrghout Asia an(l is unanimorrslv acclainrecl

bv cor.rr.roisseurs r>f lrcIritccture rvorlchvide . Surprisingll , horvever,his architccture is not u.ell linown ()utsicle thc region. and ltas notrcccivctl thc irltcrnational xttention it clesen'es.

Ila$'a u'as born i[r 1919 in $'hat was thcn the l]ritish colonl of(.eylrxr. His lhthcr rr'as u rvealthy and successfirl lawrycr. of Nlus-

lim ancl English percntagc. rvhile his m<>thcr was of mixccl (icrman.Scottish and Sinhalcsc (lescent. In l9lU l.rc wcrrt to (lanlbriclge torcacl Er-rglish. betirre stucly'ing l,aw in Lonckrn, rvhcrc he was calleclto the Bar in l9-i-1. Altcr'Worlcl V'ar II he joinecl a (.olombo larvflrm. but Irc s<>on tirecl of the legal prt>f'ession ancl in 19.1(r set ofTon tN() 1'eurs of trar-el that took hinr througl-r thc Far East. acrossthc I'nited Stutes ancl finallv to Europe. In Italv hc tovcd rvith tl-rc

iclea of settlir-rg dt>wn perrnancnth' xncl resolr.ccl to bllv a villa ove r-Iookir-rg Lakc Garda. Hc was norv 2ll ancl had spcnt one-thir(l ofhis lit-e awav from Ccllon. Not onlv hacl he beconrc nrorc ancl morcEuropeun ir1 outl()ok, but l.ris ties to (.er.lon ncrc lrlso u-eakening;both his parcnts u'cre clercl ancl lre harl tlisposccl of the last of ltis(lolombo propert\'. Thc plan to buv an ltalien r-illa caure to noth-ing. hou'cver. and in 19.ifl he returnccl to (.cr krn s'here hc boughtan aband<lnetl nrbber estate xt Lunugrngx. ( )n thc \outh-\\'est coastbetween (,ol<lmbo ancl Gltllc. His rlrcanr \\:r\ t() crcatc lln Italiangarden fiou a tropical rvilclerness. httt Itr .',, rrt i ru11q1 11.,',, his icleas

werc conll)romisecl b1' l;tck 0f tcchrtie ,ll k:l, r$ Icrlsc.In 1951 lrc *'as al)prcnticc(l t,,ll IJ lir:r:. thc solc sun'iving

partllcr of tl.tc Col<lmbo archit((tLr:.i. i':.,.:r!r Etl$ltrds. Rcid anrlIlegg. Vrhcn I{eid cliccl surlclcrtlr .: rc.,:..,:t: ll.r\\;r rctllrne(l to En-gland ancl. afier spcr.ttlir.tg. -r \1.::..' \ .. -"-: -'lL (nr()llcd xs a stu-clent at the Arcl.titccttrr:il \.., :'.l,rr'r \\'llere he is re

membered as the tallest, oldest and most outspoken student of his

scneration.Bawa finally qualified as an architect in 1957 at the age of 38

:nd returned to Ceylon to take over what was left of Reid's prac-:ice. He gathered together a group oftalented young designers and-inists w'ho shared his growing interest in Ceylon's forgotten ar-e hitectural heritage, and his ambition to develop new ways ofleking and building. As well as his immediate office colleagues,:iris group included the batik artist Ena de Silva, the designer Bar-rrra Sansoni and the artist Laki Senanayake, all ofwhose work fig-ires prominently in his buildings.

He was joined in 1959 by Ulrik Plesner, a young Danish architects'ho brought with him an appreciation of Scandinavian design andjctailing, a sense ofprofessionalism and a curiosity about Sri Lanka'sruilding traditions. The two formed a close friendship and a symbioticivorking relationship that lasted until Plesner quit the practice n 1967:() return to Europe and Bawa was joined by the engineer KPoologasundaram, who remained his partner for the next 20 years.-l-ire practice established itself as the most respected and prolific in:ri Lrnka, with a portfolio that included religious, social, cultural,cducational, governm€ntal, commercial and residential buildings,.reating a canon ofprototypes in each ofthese areas. It also became:he springboard for a new generation ofyoung Sri Lankan architects.

One of Bawa's earliest domestic buildings, a courtyard house builtin Colombo for Ena De Silva in 1961, was the first to fuse elements oftreditional Sinhalese domestic architecture with modem concepts of, rpen planning, demonstrating that an outdoor life is viable on a tighturban plot. The Bentota Beach Hotel of 1968 was Sri Lanka's firstpurpose-built resort hotel, combining the conveniences required bydemandiflg tourists with a sense of place and continuity that has rarelybcen matched. During the early l97Os a series of buildings forqovemment departments developed ideas for the workplace in a

tnrpical city, culminating in the State Mortgage Bank in Colombo,hiiled at the time as one of the world's first bio<limatic high-rises.

Bawa's growing prestige was recognised n 1979, when he wasinvited by PresidentJayawardene to design Sri lanka's new Parliament.rr Kotte. At Bawa's suggestion, the swampy site was dredged to creatern island at the centre of a vast artificial lake with the Parliamentbuilding appearing as an asymmetric composition of copper roofsIloating above a series of terraces rising out of the water. Abstractref'erences to traditional Sri Iankan and South Indian architecrure wererncorporated within a Modemist framework to create a powerful im-age of democracy, cultural harmony, continuity and progress, and a:ense of gentle monumentality.

During the 1980s, Bawa also designed the new Ruhuna Univer-!in' near Matara, a proiect that enabled him to demonstrate his masteryof extemal space and the integration of buildings in a landscape. Theresult is a matrix of pavilions and courtyards, arranged with carefulcasualness and a strong sense of theatre across a pair of rocky hillsoverlooking the southem ocean.

These proiects brought Bawa international recognition and hiswork was celebrated in a Mimar monograph by Brian Brace Taylorand in a London exhibition. A later book by Christoph Bon onLunuganga served both as a personal tribute to a friend and a beautiful photographic evocation of a garden. But the Parliament buildingand Ruhunu had left Bawa exhausted and at the end ofthe l98os hewithdrew from his partnership with Poologasundaram and relin-quished the name Edwards, Reid and Begg. He was now 70 and it waswidely assumed that he would retire to Lunuganga and contemplatehis garden. However, the break signalled a fresh round of creativeactivity and he began to work from his home in Bagatalle Road,

Colombo, with a small group of young architects. Together theyembarked on a stream of ambitious designs - hotels on Bali and Bintan,houses in Delhi and Ahmedabad, and a Cloud Centre for Singapore.None of these were built but each was treated as a test bed for newideas.

Some of these ideas came to fruition in three hotels built in Sri

l^anka in the 1990s: the Kandalama, conceived as an austere junglepalace, snaking around a rockT outcrop on the edge ofan ancient tankin the Dry Zone ; the I ighthouse at Galle, derying the southem oceansfrom its boulder-strewn headland; and the Blue Water, a cool pleasurepavilion set within a sedate coconut grove on the edge of Colombo.AII three demonstrate Bawa's concem to 'consult the genius of theplace in all', as well as his skill at integrating architecture andlandscape, and his scenographic manipulation of space.

One final house, designed for theJayawardene family in 1997 as

a weekend retreat on the cliffs of Mirissa, demonstrates Bawa'sunflagging inventiveness. A phalanx of slender columns supports a

wafer-thin roof to create a minimalist pavilion facing the southemocean and the setting sun. Nearly 40 years separate theJayawardeneHouse from the Ena de Silva House, but they are two points on a

continuum, one a distillation of the other.In 1998 Bawa was tragically struck down by a massive stroke that

left him paralysed and unable to speak. A small group of colleagues,led by Channa Daswatte, have continued to work on the projects heinitiated before his illness - an official residence for the President, a

house in Bombay, a hotel in Panadura - with drawings being takendown the corridor from the office to Bawa's bedroom for nods ofapproval or rejection.

Looking back over his career, two proiects hold the key to anunderstanding of Bawa's work: the garden at Lunuganga that hecontinued to fashion for almost 5O years, and his own house inColombo's Bagatalle Road. Lunuganga is a distant retreat, an outposton the edge of the known world, a cidlised garden within the largerwildemess of Sri t-anka, transforming an ancient rubber estate into a

series of outdoor rooms that evoke memories of Sacro Bosco andStourhead. The town house, in contrast, is an introspective assem-

blage of courfyards, verandas and loggias, created by knocking to-gether four tiny bungalows and adding a white entry tower that peerslike a periscope across neighbouring rooftops towards the distant

June 2003 Explore Sri Lanka .11

ocean. It is a haven of peace, an inJinite garden of the mind, lockedaway within a busy and increasingl.v hostile cit)'.

Throughout its long and colourftrl histor_r', Sri Lanka has beensubjected to strong outside influences from its Indian neighbours, fromArab traders and from European colonists, and it has als/ays succeededin translating these elements into something new but inrinsicalll, SriLankan. Bawa has continued this tradition. His architecture is a subtleblend of modernity and tradition, East and rVest, formal andpicturesque; he has broken down the artificial segregation ofinsideand outside, building and landscape; he has drawn on tradition tocreate an architecnrre that is fitting to its place, and he has also usedhis vast knowledge of the modem world to create an architecture thatis of its time.

Since Bawa started out on his career, Sri lanka's population hasalmost tripled, while its communities have been fractured b_v bitterpolitical and ethnic disputes. Although it might be thought that hisbuildings have had no direct impact on the lives of ordinary people,Bawa has exerted a defining influence on the emerging architectureof independent Sri Lanka and on successive generations of youngerarchitects. His ideas have spread across the island, providing a bridgebefween the past and the future, a mirror in which ordinary peoplecan obtain a clearer image of their own evolving culture.

David Robson (uly 2001)

Bawa on Bawa"Hou'euer tnucb one tries to explain arcbitecture in u,or"ds, I

do ttot tbink tbis is possible as it is only tbe final built object tbatcan be judged, understood arld liked or disliked."

Geoffrey Bawa has always been reticent about talking about hisarchitecture and prefers instead to build and also to encourage peopleto experience the built work. However in a few rare interviews andwritings he brings forth some insights into the thoughts and processes

that seem to define his work.Bawa has always seen the practice of architecture a^s an immensell,

personal thing in which one explores and puts together the variousexperiences and incidents of one's own life in response to givencircumstances of client needs, site and available resources.

"Obuiousllt tbe arcbitecture tbat otxe does contes out of tu'otbings - tbe need of the person and tbe htpes of nwterials at'ailablefor use. Utimately tbe rest colnes out of -'t,ourself. \'otr build u'batlou thi?xk is an ansuer and tubiclt git'es .t,ou pleasilt'e. I tltirtk u'eall buildfor ourselues. At least J,ott krtoLt' tt'ltat -t'ott ttant to do. It'snot a tbeory or an intellectual ansu'er."

His approach to architecture has alu'ar-s been one of directexperience and sensualiry. The prime concem is alrr avs for the lifein the sequences ofspaces that are created. His architecture does notengage the mind to be clever, but provides a background to anexpected and anticipated life.

12 4 June 2OO3 Explore Srl Lanka

Essentially Bawa's architecture engages what is already existingin either a natural landscape of a site or a functional necessity ofaccommodating necessary social events in a building, with an aestheticintent which may be enjoyed by the user. He has never theorised abouthis work, instead has left the theorising to others, although he admitsthat there is a theoretical content to the work.

"Tbat's for otbers to do. You ca,t find strong tbeoretical ideasin the uork. If someone else carx just as easily see tbe point of tbeubole project, tbat is tbe tbeoty."

Such an understanding oftheory rises out ofceoffrey Bawa's longand circuitous joumey to becoming an architect at the relatively lateage of37. Before becoming an architect, he had read English and Lawat the University of Cambridge and qualified as a lawyer at 25 and gaveit up after a short practice of six months. The years between, Bawaparticipated intimatelv in the carefree existence of the inter-waryearsin Europe and Sri Lanka. In those years he discovered the pleasuresof life to which architecture - particularly gardens, was an integral part.First a slow grand tour through the Philippines and the United States,

and then a long stay in Europe before he retumed to Sri Lanka to lookfor the ideal piece of land to make his own paradise. In 1947 he boughta piece of land which he named Lunuganga (salt river) after thespectacular backwater that surrounds it, and settled down to makeof it a garden that embodied the good life he had seen andexperienced.

"Create sornetbittg... allude to tltat uioild, not recreate tbat L,orld- because it u,as a different uorld, and you couldn't do it - be alliedto it... it utas not tied up to an! social structure exceptpeople eniq,-ing tbemselues u,itbin tbeir capability. Wlticb tuas not alierx to tbelife I led before goit'tg to England, (such as) at KimbulaprtUa Otisgrandfatber's plartation in Negombo) attd otber places. It uas mar-uellous sitting in tbis lorlg ueranda ajter luncb bauing endless con-uersatiotls."

Here more than anything else shows his inimitable personalapproach to moulding his immediate surroundings to give pleasureto its user. The essence ofthe garden predates his architectural train-ing and nurtured his attitude to architecture without an overt theo-retical iustification for anything that was done. The process was oneof serendipitous involvement with the landscape. A discovered view,a possible lowering of a hill to reveal another, and a building of anotherstair or another terrace - another sign of the hand of man.

"I like buman interuention... like in a landscape uhen peoplecottriue to mould it to tbeir moods."

It was enough that what was built or moulded managed to en-gage the user's mind in a pleasurable way. The natural environmentis seen alrnost as if it were cla_v in a sculptor's hand. This is mouldedwithin its physical limits to produce a series of pleasing vistas, viewsand spaces. With simple geometric intervention, sometimes a mereline, Bawa 'civilises' the wildest stretch of jr-rngle, and the careful plac-ing ofan artefact, in the case oflunuganga. a pot placed in the middle

dlrtance under a tree, entire mountainsides are brought into focus.Bv can'ing out forests, lowering hills and draining marshes a carefullylrrdulated configuration of space that allows for a variety ofc\periences, moods and even social possibility has been unveiled fromn hat was the wildness of a tropical iungle and rubber plantation. The

-r:sons leamt from these early experiments, which were a directrngagement with building and site to accommodate life, he main-:rined throughout his working life.

one of his earliest projects, the A S H de Silva house (1963) in(,.llle uses the sloping site to great advantage. In the Kandalama hotel

1 99-i) project he has made a strict austere building stand out against

:re dramatic landscape . The vertical lines of the support structure and

:he l-rorizontal planes of the floors completely devoid of decoration,:ccentuate the landscape by letting it dominate and take over but with: srrong sense of the hand of man still visible in the landscape. In theH()use on the Red Cliffs in Mirrissa (1997), he colonises a landscaperv Lnserting into it a grid of columns and a sheltering roof that stands

rs a filere line in it. Space is seen as a continLrum. All spaces adjacent,nd distant, whether used or unused are involved in the design. Shel-

rcred and unsheltered space blends seamlessly and the room stretches

'ur into the landscape.''.\ot so mucb rootns in rooms, but rooms irx their corfiext and

seei,tg tliings beyond a particular roont or space. Euen as u-te aresifting bere you catx imagine bout tbe place u'ill cbarxge. One'sfeel'rttgs itt a rootn constantly alter as one moues around it - particu'i,trl.t' itl tbe perceptiott of outside and adjacent spaces. Wbat I rnearlts tlrdt u'ben .you design anytbing, say that end wall tbere - you batteto coilsider seeing tbrougLt it, past it, around it from all cliffererxtp,)iltts of uieu. T-be landscape is a mouing picture tbat otte is in-side of. It is a continuum in uhich all sides appear shnultaneously.

-llouernent is uery importatxt. As yolt moue tbrough a buildittg

_t t)u dre conscious of euerytbing around you - altbougb you may

rtttturally see it in detail... tbe rooms are nterely about orcbesbat-iltg one's mouement, determining bou,people rnoue througb space,t,tecause tlzat really is ubat one does. Arrittal being drautn in, dis-L't)t'erifig, being released to tbe uieu'. Tbe inter-linked spaces arebackdrops to life. It is txot a singular deuotion to a beautiful uieut.

Tl.tere is a more intrinsic energy tbat Soes on u)itbirt tbe spaces

drctber sbeltered or not.Wbat is tbere needs to be taken into consideration. Wbetber it

dnltoys you or pleases you, it doesn't ,nalter, you baue to take itirtto consideration."

This attitude has meant that Bawa has always been deeply scep-

rical about form making for its own sake. Shown a design of an air-

port that had a strong form that suggested a bird and therefore flightand asked if he could do it,

"l don't knout.... I can neuer imagine it as a q,mbol, I can imag-itrc it as a platx or a Ieeling of going tbrougb to an aeroplane. Tbe

,finalform comesfrom doing it, actually u'alkilxg tbrouglr... I haue

alutays been against making a shape and tlcett hal)ing to be re'stricted by it.

In m! approacb to arcbitecture I tbink my first concent is tbe

arrangement of space. HoLo tbis is related to tbe site and tbe needs

of tbe mornent utitbin ubateuel corxstraints tbere are."Even in his design for the House of Parliament at Sri

Jayawardenapura (1982), the building which is in essence a monu-

ment and thus seemed to provide the agenda for a strong form, Bawa

imagined various sequences of movement through the complex,particularly that of the central promenade that takes the speakersprocession from outer veranda to inner vestibule through to the end

of the central chamber. Along with the other pattems of movement,

the building that results is a complex asymmetric form that breaks

down the bulk of this vast complex, and is reminiscent of its historicpredecessors in the royal and monastic buildings of Sri Lanka.

A major factor in defining his approach to design and the finaldesign of a particular proiect is the site.

"Obuiouslly ifyou enjoy buildingyou can't do itfrom arx office.You ba ue to go to tlre site because tbe site is altogetber important.Wbetber it is a big building or a small building 1ou must be in-uohted u'itlt the site.

Tbe site giues the most pouerful pltslz to a design along u'itbtbe brief. Witbout seeing tbe site I cannot Luork. It is essential to be

tbere. After tuo bours on tbe site, I baue a mental picture of tobatu'ill be tbere and how the site u,ill cbange and tbat picture does

not cbange."After the initial picture has been established the process of

building starts by trying to make others working with him to see thepicture too.

".,getting tbe pictare out and explaining to eueryone is diffi-cult. It is for tbis reason tlrat the drautings u,e make, trees and alltbe landscape elements are included.. T'bey are about the total pic-

ture."From the outset all drawings contain the salient physical features

of the site including important trees and boulders and directions ofviews. The process of design and building is seen as an attempt toget as close as possible to the original picture that has developed intl-re mind, as possible but with due consideration to how the site itselfchanges with the new impositions.

"hx eacb project one finds that one's tbinking is unconfined.With tbe particular needs of tlte buildittg at tbe back of one's mindone sees tbe solution as tt totalit! - tbe site being all important andone sees wbateuer uision is granted to one as a building set in itssurroundings - tbe building seen from outside, tbe mouement itx

tbe building, tbe ubole picture one tries to see u,hateuer anYoneusing tbe br.tilding uould also see and feel. ht sbot't, tbe totalitl' ofappeardnce and mouement in and out of tbe buildings."

This non-formal approach to design is extended to the executionon site as well. For Bawa, ultimate bliss is to see and participate in the

June 2OO3 Explore Sri Lanka.13

building process directly on site. In an early proiect Polontalawa(1964) -Baura and Ulrik Plesner, partner and friend,

"...discouered a spot full of boulders and ue botb said bouexcellent and splendid it utould be to build a bouse bere. So wepulled some strings and sticks, brougbt some chairs and sandwicbes,and built it tDith a contractor ubo follou.ted euery gesture of ourbands."

He considers this close interaction with the craftsmen and tech-nical personnel directly involved in making the buildings, of theutmost importance.

"...tbere i.s aho interaction uitb people and crafisrnen - tellingtbem uhat to do especially uitb tbe details. We do muclt more oftbis on the site tban uitb drawings. Tbe contribution of tbe mak-ers, particularly tbe older carpenters and masons wbo are passion-ate about ubat tbq) do is equal to or more, in some cases thanours. It is alu.tajts quite obuious tbey understand utben u)e aretalking about a detail on tbe site.

...Sometimes quite ofien, tbey do mucb better tban you expecttbem to. This trust is reJlected in tbe buildings. Tbe trust is ako lim-ited to one's intentions, wbicb you must bold up to tbese crafismm."

In other words the design is limited or extended by the knowl-edge and the resources of the craftsmen and technology available.

"If u-tbat you Luant to build can't be built by you yourse$ tbenyou go to a master of tbat particular trade and say: "H0LU do youdo tbis?" Tben tbey will tell you and tben you haue to uork witbintbose limitations."

The use of materials available in a locality has been of particularimportance in his work tfuoughout. If you go to a tropical island, thearchitecture should be a way of building that comes from the islanditself and from the people themselves.

A close look at all the buildings he has been involved in shows a

great variety of attitudes to materials. The early buildings done throughthe firm of Edwards, Reid and Begg of which he became a partner in1958, shows a textbook approach to the use of concrete. At St

Thomas' Preparatory School(1964) and the Bishop's College (1965)simple concrete frame structures hold wide sunshades, comrgatedroofs and breis-soleil. These early experiments made use of the ideas

he was exposed to at the AA."For St Tbomas' tbere uas a possibility of using reinforced

concrete, wbicb I uas trained to do in a certain way and decoratein a certain uaJ4 using people wbo could, like Anil ulbo u,as a goodsculptor..."

From these early experiences and experiments with frame struc-tures, Bawa moved easily into the use of local materials availablearound him and the assembly of which was not conceptually dissimi-lar.

At the farm school he built in Hanwella for the Good Shepherdcongregation in lg$,Bawaha6 achieved a humane modem complexof buildings using available local skills and materials - brick, plaster,

14. June 2OO3 Explore Sri Lanka

coconut rafters and Jungle posts. Mosaic work of broken platesdonated by a nearby ceramic factory cover the walls. At the officesfor the steel corporation (1967) he uses the potential for pre-castconcrete panels to great effect to build an airy breathing pavilionjutting out into a large pond. In the clubhouse built for Madurai Coatsin Madurai, local stone splitting techniques and masonry skills are usedto good effect along with recycled doors from old Chettinad houses.

"I baue built in India, Indonesia and Mauritius. Tbey are alldffirent in essence, from uhat I do in Sri lanka because all tbemateriak used and the metbods of construction are establisbed intLrose countries. If you take tbe local materiak and tbe generalfeeoftbe place into account, ubicb I enjoyed doing, tbe resultant build-ing automatically becomes regional. I do not make it regional andI do not take regionalism a^s a creed. I just build u-tbat I am askedto build.

Wbatlrightens me is tbat regionalism is tbougbt to be a lessen-ing of ciuilisation. It is not! Pbilip Jobnson's hotne in ConnecticutUSA is as regional as a mud but in uhereuer it lies. It is not a goodtbing to say, but it all comes from a lack of general education.

Eacb projea is a uery pafricular response to a culture it's in -particularly in respect to tbe materiak. Understanding Bali is aerydifferentfrom SoutLr India. Stone is tbe ruaterial of Soutb India andtimber of Bali. Most decisions are obuious in tbat ua!. At least ob-uious to me. Design encompasses a cultural sensitiuiA. I respondto it tbrougb tbe site and tbe materials of tbe site. AnJ) otber response

is bogus to me."All this also implies the importance that is made to climate in the

work. The material used and the forms that the craftsmen are capableof making have in them an intrinsic respect for the climate that theyare in.

Materials and building techniques are seen as a consequence ofavallabtltty and economy. There is no conscious effort to build in a

vemacular or regional style but is a direct response to the climate andculture ofthe place. Through this attitude to archit€cture and building,Bawa's work links the modem period to a continuum of history andbuitding traditions of the regions and places he works in.

Bawa's skill at using the resources around him has also extendedto people. From the brilliant mind of his long time partner, Dr KPoolagasundaram and a host of other architects, engineers and de-signers, master masons and metalworkers whose collaboration Bawaenloys, he uses extensively and to advantage.

The essence of Bawa's work, the product of this process, is onein which form is articulated as a function of movement and experi-ence of the context, either as grand landscape or tight urban space,enveloped in the materials and skills available to him. Architecture isse€n as a line that defines and marks the presence of man in thelandscape and then dissolves into the background to make way for life.Channa Daswatte (october 1998)

Geoffrqt Bawa passed au'a-t' on -lla)' 2-. ).)t)-1. He u'as 84 years old. @