Nonetheless, Bawa’s talent was increasingly celebrated and requested overseas. Instructions came in 1971 from India, where he built the Madurai Club extension (now demolished) to the prestigious Connemara Hotel, and in 1973 from Bali, where he worked on an ultimately unrealized project to develop private villas for Australian painter Donald Friend. Over a decade later, experiencing global recognition following features in a book collection and an exhibition at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London, Bawa focused his energies for a number of years entirely outside of Sri Lanka, dedicating himself to ambitious projects such as a tropical glasshouse in Singapore’s Botanical Gardens, an extension to the Hyatt Hotel in Bali, a huge villa hotel on the island of Bintan and a high-rise development in Penang, in addition to private homes. Though these designs were left unfinished, they induced a new period of creativity in Bawa, who was already in his seventies.
Seema Malaka
Bawa’s imprint can best be felt in Colombo city, which has become the archetypal ‘tropical metropolis’. Though the unstable political environment nearly compelled Bawa to permanently relocate to India, his most enduring landmarks are the political and ideological symbols in the capital. In 1977, the year that Sri Lanka elected a new government headed by J.R. Jayawardene, Bawa built the Seema Malaka Buddhist Temple on Beira Lake – a remarkable feat of tantalizing architecture that emits the illusion of floating on the otherwise unbroken surface of the water. Two years later, a year into his executive presidency under the amended constitution, J. R. Jayawardene commissioned designs for a new Parliament building at Kotte. As with the temple, Bawa proposed that the magnificent complex be built on high land that would become an island in the centre of a flooded valley. The result came to fruition in 1982, and was declared open by J. R. Jayewardene.
Nowadays, the view of Bawa’s Parliament building is a somewhat simple summation of the country’s essence: the serene lakes represent the natural beauty, sustainably manipulated by man’s hand, and rising high above is a structural example of the strive for innovation and brilliance. Visitors to Sri Lanka have unlimited opportunities to engage with Bawa’s greatness: his prolific output continued until the late 1990s from his small independent practice Geoffrey Bawa Associates. In March 1998, aged 79, Bawa suffered a stroke, and the firm was managed by Channa Daswatt until its closure in 2002.
The Lunuganga Estate and Bawa’s Colombo home, ‘Number 11’, are open for public and private tours. At Number 11, Bawa combined four individual bungalows on 33rd Lane, Bagatelle Road, in the quiet and pretty suburb of Colombo 3, into a personal oasis of innovation and comfort. The entrance is marked by a decorated glass door and semi-circle moonstone. True to Bawa’s style and philosophy, the unassuming exterior hides a plethora of treasures and surprises inside the house. A walk through his home is itself an aesthetic journey, and an insight into the ideas and style of a rare architectural genius. Bawa’s home is a perfect wonder of space, light and art, maintained in all its vibrancy by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust.
Bawa’s Colombo home at Number 11 | Courtesy of Geoffrey Bawa Trust
Sri Lanka’s tiny island is scattered with remnants of Geoffrey Bawa, yet his legacy is not a personal one, but rather one that captures the character of a whole nation. In a tribute, the Burgher author Michael Ondaatje said of Bawa:
“Every artist works on a different scale. A page. A painting. A sonata. A film. A novel. A house. A garden. But essentially they all create, in some ways, self-portraits of themselves. Art is a long intimacy. The scale of the achievement might be grand and take years but it has to be personal and carefully pieced together and specific to its culture.”
In this sense, there is no better portrait of Sri Lanka’s heritage, its culture and its potential, than the inimitable work of Geoffrey Bawa.
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