Architecture cannot be totally explained

but must be experienced…

-GEOFFREY BAWA
PHILOSOPHY:
•Highly personal in his approach, evoking the pleasures of the senses that go hand in
hand with the climate, landscape, and culture of ancient Ceylon(Present day Sri Lanka).
•Brings together an appreciation of the Western humanist tradition in
architecture with needs and lifestyles of his own country.
•The principal force behind TROPICAL MODERNISM.
•Work with a sensitivity to site and context.
•His designs break down the barriers between inside and outside, between interior
design and landscape architecture.
•He reduced buildings to a series of scenographically conceived spaces separated by
courtyards and gardens.
•His ideas are 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
• LUNUGANGA ESTATE
.
• Lunuganga Estate was the country home of the renowned Sri Lankan architect
Geoffrey Bawa. Started in 1947.

• Lunuganga consists of the Entrance court, Glass

house, Garden room, Gallery, Main house,
Smallhouse, Cinnamon hill house, Middle walk,
Broad walk, Plain of jars and Cinnamon Hill.
• 33RD LANE COLOMBO, 1960-1970
• The house in 33rd Lane is an essay in
architectural bricollage.
• Elements salvaged from old buildings in Sri
Lanka and South India were artfully
incorporated into the evolving composition.
• In 1958 Bawa bought the third house in a
row of four small houses.
• He converted it into a pied-à-terre with
living room, bedroom, tiny kitchen and
room for a servant.
• After some time he bought the fourth and
this was colonized to serve as dining room
and second living room.
• Ten years later the remaining bungalows
were acquired and added into the
composition and the first in the row was
converted into a four-storey tower.
• Over a period of forty years the houses were
subjected to continual change.
• Although the plan form of the whole might at each
stage have been thought to be simply the result of an
arbitrary process of stripping away and adding, any
accidental or picturesque quality has always been
tempered by a strong sense of order and
composition.
• It was here that Bawa developed his interest in
architectural bricolage.
• The main part of the house is an evocation of a lost
world of verandahs and courtyards assembled from a
rich collection of traditional devices and plundered
artifacts and the new tower which rises above the
car port rises from a shady nether world to give
views out across the treetops towards the sea
PARLIAMENT BUILDING,
SRILANKA
PARLIAMENT BUILDING,
SRILANKA