GEOFFREY BAWA architect

about geoffrey bawa

1. GEOFFREY
BAWA

2. WHO IS
BAWA?
Geoffrey Manning Bawa was a Sri
Lankan architect. He is the most
renowned architect in Sri Lanka
and was among the most
influential Asian architects of his
generation.

3. HIS TIMELINE.
1919: born in British colony of Ceylon, father: muslim wealthy, successful lawyer, mother
mixed German, Scottish and Sinhalese descent.
1938: studied English at Cambridge. After World War II he joined a Colombo law firm
and qualified as a barrister. • He was, by his own admission, a bad lawyer. He wasn't much
good at anything else either
1946: tired of the legal profession and in set off on two years of travel. • In Italy he toyed with
the idea of settling down permanently and resolved to buy a villa overlooking Lake Garda. he
become more and more European in outlook, his ties to Ceylon were also weakening
1948 he returned to Ceylon where he bought an abandoned rubber estate at Lunuganga.

4. 1951: received his first commission, failed to execute it because of his lack of technical
knowledge . He was apprenticed to H H Reid, the sole surviving partner of the Colombo
architectural practice Edwards, Reid and Begg.
1952: Reid died, Bawa returned to England and enrolled as a student at the Architectural
Association in London.
1957: qualified as an architect at the age of thirty-eight and returned to Ceylon. Gathered
together a group of talented young designers and artists who shared his growing interest in
Ceylon's forgotten architectural heritage, and his ambition to develop new ways of making
and building.
He was joined in 1959 by Ulrik Plesner, a young Danish architect who brought with him an
appreciation of Scandinavian design and detailing, a sense of professionalism and a curiosity
about Sri Lanka's building traditions.
In 1998 Bawa was tragically struck down by a massive stroke that left him paralysed and
unable to speak.

5. HIS
CONCEPTS.
Geoffrey Bawa doesn't work without first reading
the lines of the land, the influence of the climate,
the kinds of things that grow here or there. He
thinks through the landscape, opens space up to it
His structures are airy and light, open and
outstretched.
For Bawa, a space cannot be conceived from a
stationary perspective: movement is essential to
both its concept and the experience of it.
He considers the interaction of various lines of
vision, and finally integrates all of this information
into a unified design.
“A building can only be understood by moving around and
through it and by experiencing the modulation and feel of
the spaces one moves through”

6. Bawa continued to
develop these themes
throughout his career,
refining them to a
point where some of
his late works are
almost
indistinguishable
from the landscape
around them.
Bawa revolutionized the Sri
Lankan concept of urban
living space, turning houses
in on themselves to make the
most of limited building
plots and subverting the
distinction between indoors
and outdoors.
He also drew inspiration
from the topographically-
governed aesthetic of
ancient Sinhalese
architecture, with its
tropisms toward landscape
and water.

7. HIS PROJECTS.
This courtyard house, designed for a friend, was Bawa's earliest building.
. By fusing aspects of traditional Sinhalese domestic architecture with modern concepts of
open planning, Bawa demonstrated how a small urban plot can convey notions of the
outdoors. The plan is driven by linked pavilions and modest courtyards around a central
court (meda midula) that is contained by a wall that stretches the perimeter.
The site is a small corner plot in the Colombo suburb of Cinnamon Gardens
1. A courtyard house built in Colombo for Ena De Silva

8. Inspired by traditonal manor houses the patron had known as a child, and by using local
materials, as well as minimal amounts of glass, and steel reinforcements only for the first
floor slab and supporting frame, the urban dwelling assumes an otherworldly, naturalistic
pose.
The mature mango tree was not displaced but was integrated into the site by building the
courtyard around it. The equally large Plumeria was planted in the courtyard with the help of
an elephant.

10. The site was to be located eight kilometers east of Colombo in Kotte, an important pre-
colonial city.
Bawa suggested they flood the marshy valley of the Diyavanna Oya to create an artificial lake,
in the center of which the Parliament would rest on a knoll of high ground.
Copper roofs appear as floating above water from two kilometers away on the approach road
2. Sri Lanka's new Parliament at Kotte

11. The plan radiates from the main central building that is surrounded by five peripheral
pavilions.
. Each building is both articulated and syncronized by the plinth that puts all the structures at
the same level and outlines each unique pavilion form.
The main pavilion, housing the debating chamber, is juxtaposed in its symmetrical balance
with the irregularly shaped, autonomous surrounding pavilions.
The main pavilion is set three stories above the two tiers of terraces and galleries that have
administrative offices and committee rooms.

12. Thank you!