Geoffrey Bawa: Father Of Srilankan Architecture

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“Architecture cannot be totally explained but must be experienced”

GEOFFREY BAWA

Presented by Chandana R S6. A

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A SUMMARY OF CONTENTS

TODAY

Introduction Design Style Philosophy and Concepts Practice Major Works Lunuganga Parliament Building Ruhunu University

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INTRODUCTION

GEOFFREY BAWA

Geoffrey Manning Bawa was born on 23 July 1919 in Srilanka.

Educated at Royal College and Middle Temple, London and became a Lawyer.

Studied architecture in Architectural Association, London in 1956.

In 1957, at the age of 38 , returned to Sri Lanka qualified as an architect to take over Reid's practice.

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 only the third architect in India.

ABOUT

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ARCHITECT

DESIGN STYLE

Bawa was one of the original proponents of Tropical Modernism Explored modernism and its cultural implications and created a unique, recognizable style of design

TROPICAL MODERNISM : A design movement in which sensitivity for local context combines with the form-making principles of modernism.

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GEOFFREY BAWA

Philosophy 1. Respected the site and context 2. Buildings had a play of light and shade.

3. Flow of spaces.

TPECNOC

“A building can only be understood by moving around and through it and by experiencing the modulation and feel the spaces one moves through- from the outside into verandah, than rooms, passages, courtyards”

4. Fused vernacular architecture with the modern concepts to satiate the needs of the urban population.

5. Used salvaged artefacts.

6. Roof forms as elements.

7. Waterbody –an essential part of Bawa’s architecture.

“Architecture cannot be totally explained but must be experienced.”

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GEOFFREY BAWA

Geoffrey Bawa started in the firm of Edwards Reid and Begg.

His fellow partners from 1959 to 1967 were Jimmy Nilgiria and Valentine Gunesekera.

The Danish architect Ulrik Plesner joined the practice in 1959 and worked as a close collaborator with Bawa until the end of 1966.

After 1967 Bawa’s sole partner was Dr. K. Poologasundram who acted as engineer and office manager until the partnership was dissolved in 1989.

In 1990 Bawa founded ‘Geoffrey Bawa Associates’.

Channa Daswatte acted as his principal associate from 1993 until 1998.

"PRACTICE" H I S T O R Y

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WORKS

GEOFFREY BAWA

His use of traditional building materials and architectural elements adapted to the local climate proved to be useful, it kept the costs down in addition to supporting the local context.

LUNGANGA

PARLIAMENT

UNIVERSITY

1948, Bawa purchased the

After the social and

Bawa designed several

Lunganga rubber plantation,

governmental changes of the

new buildings for the

and developed an interest in

60s and 70s, Bawa received

University of Ruhuna

gardening and architectural

commissions for even larger

(1988).

design.

projects.

This garden was transformed

Bawa’s design for the Sri-

into an Italian inspired garden

Lanka Parliament Building

with spectacular views over

(1982) using pitched roofs

lakes and tropical jungle.

and other elements from local architecture embodied the Government’s lineage.

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GEOFFREY BAWA

Date : 1949-1998 Type : Landscape, Residential Use : Garden, Private residence

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA, SRI LANKA

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GEOFFREY BAWA

Lunuganga AT THE BEGINNING A small rubber plantation consisting of a house and 25 acres of land.

A low hill planted with rubber and fruit trees and coconut palms with rice fields.

NOW The Italian inspired garden with spectacular views over lakes and tropical jungle The original bungalow survive within its cocoon of added verandas, courtyards and loggias.

This is not a garden of colorful flowers, neat borders and gurgling fountains: it is a civilized wilderness, an assemblage of tropical plants of different scale and texture, a composition of green on green, an ever changing play of light and shade, a succession of hidden surprises and sudden vistas, a landscape of memories and ideas.

Site plan

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GEOFFREY BAWA

Date : 1982 Types : Government Building

SRI LANKAN PARLIAMENT COMPLEX

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Parliament Building The new Sri Lankan parliament is an asymmetric group of colonnaded pavilions with striking copper roofs, built on an island the ‘floating’ on a man-made lake.

Building is designed in a style of regional modernism; while the building is an example of modernism, it still respects sri lankan vernacular architecture.

The parliament complex has the illusion of symmetry, which contrasts sharply with the organic form of the lake it is located in.

Traditional wood and stone columns, reminiscent of ancient palaces and temples, supports the copper roofs.

In their final form the parliament roofs are an abstraction of the traditional kandyan roof.

Site plan

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GEOFFREY BAWA

Date : 1982 Type

: Educational

Use

: University

RUHUNU UNIVERSITY, MANTARA, SRI LANKA

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GEOFFREY BAWA

Ruhunu University

The 30-hectare site straddled three steep hills, the westernmost overlooking the sea and separated from the other two Bawa’s design deployed over fifty separate pavilions linked by a system of covered loggias on a predominantly orthogonal grid Used a limited vocabulary of forms and materials borrowed from the building traditions But it made full use of the changing topography of the site to create an ever varying sequence of courts and verandas, vistas and closures. The result was a modern campus, vast in size but human in scale.

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-Thank You-