Geoffrey Bawa

Geoffrey Manning Bawa (23 July 191927 May 2003) was a Sri Lankan architect. Often referred to as the leader of the Tropical Modernist movement, he was among the most influential Asian architects of his generation.Aesthetic Recollections Newindpress on Sunday

Early life Geoffrey Bawa was born in Colombo on 23 July 1919, the younger of the two sons of Major Benjamin Bawa, a Sri Lankan lawyer who was partly of European parentage, and Bertha Marianne née Schrader, a Burgher of mixed Sinhalese, German and Scottish descent. His older brother, Bevis, became a landscape architect.

Education Bawa was educated at Royal College, Colombo after which he studied English and Law in 1938 at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, gaining a BA (English Literature Tripos) and went on to study law at Middle Temple, London, becoming a barrister in 1944.

Returning to Ceylon after World War II, he worked for a Colombo law firm. After the death of his mother, he left the profession and soon left in 1946 to travel for two years, going to the Far East, across the United States, and finally to Europe and almost settling in Italy. By the time he was 28 years old, he had spent a third of his life away from Sri Lanka. During his time in Italy, he planned to buy a villa and settle down, but that did not happen, and by 1948 he had returned to Sri Lanka.

Bawa bought an abandoned rubber estate on the south-west coast of the island between Colombo and Galle at Lunuganga, planning to create an Italian garden from a tropical wilderness. However, he 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 died, but Bawa still aspired to a career in architecture, so he returned to England. After spending a year at Cambridge, he enrolled as a student at the Architectural Association in London, where he earned a Diploma in Architecture by 1956 and in the following year he became an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects. In 1957, at the age of 38 he returned to Sri Lanka as a qualified architect to take over what was left of Reid's practice.

Career in architecture Returning to Ceylon, he became a partner of Messrs. Edwards, Reid and Begg, Colombo in 1958. In 1959, Danish architect Ulrik Plesner joined the firm, and the two designed many buildings together.

Bawa was influenced by colonial and traditional Ceylonese architecture, and the role of water in it, but rejected both the idea of regionalism and the imposition of preconceived forms onto a site.Aldrich, Robert Cultural Encounters and Homoeroticism in Sri Lanka: Sex and Serendipity, Routledge, 2014, pp66-79, 123–134

Plesner left the island in 1967.Ulrik Plesner: In Situ. An architectural memoir from Sri Lanka. Aristo Publishing, 2013, 451 pages, illustrated. Bawa became an Associate of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects in 1960. 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 materials and crafts, leading to a post-colonial renaissance of culture.

In 1979, President J. R. Jayewardene invited Bawa to design Sri Lanka's new Parliament building at Kotte. The project was completed in 1982 with the help of a firm of Japanese contractors, Mitsui.

Personal life Like his brother Bevis, Geoffrey was homosexual: both maintained a wide circle of friendships with other gay artists working across Sri Lanka and Oceania, including David Paynter, Lionel Wendt, and Donald Friend.Aldrich, Robert, Cultural Encounters and Homoeroticism in Sri Lanka, Taylor & Francis 2014, passim.Furman, Adam Nathaniel; Mardell, Joshua, Queer Spaces: An Atlas of LGBTQ+ Places and Stories, RIBA Publishing, 2022, passim

Later life and death

In 1982, Bawa established the Geoffrey Bawa Trust with the aim of furthering the fields of architecture, fine arts and environmental studies. In the early 1990s, Bawa suffered a series of strokes that left him ill.

Bawa died on 27 May 2003 at the age of 83.

Influence Geoffrey Bawa influenced a generation of architects in Sri Lanka after him, but his legacy was also embraced in Asia and around the world. Several of Bawa's projects also supplied models for new building types in Sri Lanka. At the Ena de Silva House, rooms were arranged around an inward-looking central courtyard, offering an alternative to the colonial bungalow. The Bentota Beach Hotel combined modern accommodation with forms and materials associated with its setting and influenced later resort development in the country. At the University of Ruhuna, pavilions, loggias, courtyards and terraces were distributed across two rocky hills, closely joining the campus to its landscape.

List of works Bawa's work was mainly in Sri Lanka, but included several other countries as well: nine times in India, three times in Indonesia, twice in Mauritius and once in Fiji, and Singapore. His works include houses, hotels, schools, clubs, offices and government buildings, most notably the Sri Lankan Parliament Building. Today, the Gallery Café on Paradise Road in Colombo is located in Bawa's former office building. +A List of the works of Geoffrey BawaWorkLocationYears worked onNotesImage1940sLunugangaBentota1948 - 1998Bawa's country estate1950sS. Thomas' Preparatory SchoolColombo1957 - 1964Carmen Gunasekera HouseColombo1958Kanangara HouseColombo1959Club HouseRatnapura1959Deraniyagala HouseColombo1959Wimal Fernando HouseColombo1959Jayawardena HouseColombo1959 - 1960Ekala Industrial EstateJa Ela1959 - 1960A. S. H. De Silva HouseGalle1959 - 1960Manager's BungalowMaskeliya1959 - 1960Turin Koralage HouseElpitiya1959 - 1960Wijewardene HouseColombo1959 - 19641960sOsmund and Ena De Silva HouseColombo1960 - 1962Bishop's CollegeColombo1960 - 196333rd LaneColombo1960 - 1998Bawa's Colombo residenceNazareth Chapel, Good Shepherd ConventBandarawela1961 - 1962House for Dr. BartholomeuszColombo1961 - 1963House for Chris and Carmel RaffelColombo1962 - 1964Pim and Pam Fernando HouseColombo1963St. Bridget's Convent Montessori SchoolColombo1963 - 1964Polontalawa Estate BungalowPolontalawa1963 - 1965Hilton ColomboColombo1965Madurai Boys' TownMadurai, India1965 - 1967Yahapath Endera Farm SchoolHanwella1965 - 1971Coral Garden HotelHikkaduwa1966Additions and renovationsGrand Oriental HotelColombo1966 Additions and renovations Formerly known as the Taprobane HotelSteel Corporation OfficesOruwala1966 - 1969Bentota Beach HotelBentota1967 - 1969Pieter Keuneman HouseColombo1967 - 1969Serendib HotelBentota1967 - 1970Yala Beach HotelYala1968Mahahalpe FarmKandy1969Ceylon Pavilion at the 1970 World's FairOsaka, Japan1969 - 19701970sThe Villa Bentota by KK CollectionBentota1970 - 1971Pallakele Industrial EstatePallekele1970 - 1971P.C. de Saram Terrace HousesColombo1970 - 1973Science BlockNugegoda1971Madurai ClubMadurai, India1971 - 1974Has been renamed as Heritage Madurai.Hotel ConnemaraChennai, India1971 - 1976Remodelled by Bawa, it's now known as the Taj ConnemaraClub MediterraneeNilaveli1972Stanley de Saram HouseColombo1972Batujimbar PavilionsSanur, Indonesia1972 - 1975Peter White HousePereybere, Mauritius1973 - 1974Heritance Ayurveda Maha GedaraBeruwela1973 - 1976Formerly the Neptune HotelAgrarian Research and Training InstituteColombo1974 - 1976Hotel at PondicherryPuducherry, India1975Seema MalakaColombo1976 - 1978State Mortgage BankColombo1976 - 1978Candoline HotelGoa, India1977Panama HotelPanama1977Martenstyn HouseColombo1977 - 1979Meena Muttiah Hospital for the Kumarni of ChettinadChennai, India1978House for Lidia GunasekeraBentota1978 - 1980Institute for Integral EducationPiliyandala1978 - 1981Club Villa HotelBentota1979Heritance AhungallaAhungalla1979 - 1981Formerly the Triton HotelSri Lankan Parliament BuildingSri Jayawardenepura Kotte1979 - 19821980sUniversity of RuhunaMatara1980 - 1988Sunethra Bandaranaike HouseHoragolla1984 - 1986Offices for Banque IndosuezColombo1985Institute of Engineering TechnologyKatunayake1985Fitzherbert HouseTangalle1985 - 1986De Soysa HouseColombo1985 - 1991Bashir Currimjee HousePort Louis, Mauritius1986 - 1994Hyatt HotelSanur, Indonesia1989Larry Gordon HouseWakaya, Fiji1989Singapore Cloud CentreSingapore19891990sBanyan Tree HotelTanjung Pinang, Indonesia1991Heritance KandalamaDambulla1991 - 1994 Formerly the Kandalama Hotel The first LEED-certified project outside the United StatesJayakody House ColomboColombo1991 - 1996Sarabhai HouseAhmedabad, India1992Modi HouseDelhi, India1992Jayakody House BentotaBentota1993Poddar HouseBangalore, India1994Avani Kalutara ResortKalutara1994 - 1996Formerly the Kani Lanka Resort & SpaLighthouse HotelGalle1995 - 1997Blue Water HotelWadduwa1996 - 1998Official Residence of the PresidentSri Jayawardenepura Kotte1997 -Pradeep Jayewardene HouseMirissa1997 - 1998Spencer HouseColombo1998Jacobsen HouseTangalleThe Last HouseTangalle19972000sAnantara Kalutara ResortKalutaraCompleted in 2016 to Bawa's designUnbuiltGaladari HotelIslamabad, Pakistan1984U.N. Headquarters, MaléMalé, Maldives1985

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)

See also Lunuganga Charles Correa Tropical Modernism

References

Geoffrey Bawa

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