Geoffrey Manning Bawa

GEOFFREY MANNING BAWA

RUBINA SHAUKAT 10031AC025

KIRTI JALAN 10031AC015

GEOFFREY MANNING BAWA Date of birth :July 23, 1919 Place of birth: Colombo Education and Career 1930-37:studied at Royal College, Colombo 1938-41:studied English at Cambridge 1942-44:studied Law in London 1946:worked briefly as a lawyer with Noel

Gratien 1951:worked as an assistant architect with HH

Reid at Edwards Reid and Begg in Prince Street, Colombo

1950-53:worked sporadically as a lawyer in Colombo

1954-57:studied at the Architectural Association in London

1957:joined Edwards Reid and Begg as a junior partner 1958-65:worked in close association with Ulrik Plesne

1967-89:partner with Dr. K. Poologasundram in Edwards Reid Begg

1990-97:partner in Geoffrey Bawa Associates(after 1995 with Channa Daswatte)

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)

EXHIBITIONS AND PUBLICATIONS1. 1986: exhibition at the Royal Institute of Architects, London

publication of “Geoffrey Bawa”, Brian Brace TaylorConcept Media, Singapore

2. 1991: publication of “Lunuganga”, Geoffrey Bawa with Christoph Bon & Dominic Sansoni, Times Editions, Singapore

3. 2002:publication of “Bawa the complete works”, David RobsonThames and Hudson, London

4. 2004:retrospective exhibition “Bawa – Architect of Sri Lanka”Deutches Architektur Museum, Frankfurt 2007:publication of “Beyond Bawa”, David RobsonThames and Hudson, London

IDEOLOGY He is the principal force behind what is today

known globally as ‘tropical modernism’.

Bawa’s work is characterised by a sensitivity to site and context. He produced “sustainable architecture” long before the term was coined, and had developed his own “regional modernist” stance well in advance of the theoreticians.

His designs broke down the barriers between inside and outside, between interior design and landscape architecture and reduced buildings to a series of scenographically conceived spaces separated by courtyards and gardens.

FEW FAMOUS WORKS

RUHUNU UNIVERSITY,MATARA

THE KANDALAMA HOTEL, DAMBULLA.

BENTOTA BEACH HOTEL.

NUMBER 11 33RD LANE COLOMBO

NUMBER 11 33RD LANE COLOMBO, 1960-1970

In 1958 Bawa bought the third in a row of four small houses at the end of a narrow suburban lane and converted it into a pied-à-terre with living room, bedroom, tiny kitchen and room for a servant.

When the fourth bungalow became vacant this was colonised 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 demolished to be replaced by a four-storey tower.

The final result is an introspective labyrinth of rooms and garden courts which together create the illusion of limitless space.

NUMBER 11 33RD LANE COLOMBO Words like inside and outside lose all meaning: here

are rooms without roofs and roofs without walls, all connected by a complex matrix of axes and internal vistas.

If 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 artefacts, the new tower which rises above the car port is nothing less than a reworking of le Corbusier's Maison Citrohan and serves as a periscope which rises from a shady nether world to give views out across the treetops towards the sea.



NUMBER 11 33RD LANE COLOMBO The residence is a collage of indoor and outdoor living

rooms hybridizing courtyard house and tower house typologies.

The complicated sequence of spaces retains traces of its original configuration as a private row of four compact bungalows.

Bawa used his own home as a canvas for architectural experimentation, testing formal or spatial techniques in the ever-evolving composition of the residence before he articulated them in projects for other clients.

The result of Bawa’s constant innovation and addition to the residence is a home that masterfully blends the two architectural traditions from which Bawa drew heavily: twentieth-century European Modernism and traditional Sri Lankan design.



The final result is an introspective labyrinth of rooms and garden courts which together create the illusion of limitless space.

Words like inside and outside lose all meaning: here are rooms without roofs and roofs without walls, all connected by a complex matrix of axes and internal vistas.

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.

The total ground area of the site is slightly over 6000 square feet. Developed over a span of several decades, the final plan of the

residence is a complex sequence of dozens of small rooms, patios, and gardens.

The residence can be subdivided into three discrete units: the ground floor residence, the tower, and the ground floor guest suite or office.


One-third of the site at the ground level, or approximately two thousand square feet, is given over to a dozen courtyard gardens that vary greatly in size. These unroofed spaces range from small planters or pools tucked in the corners of hallways to a generous walled patio wrapping the eastern end of the property.




The architectural articulation and material palette of the home is muted in order to allow the structure to serve as a clean backdrop for Bawa’s impressive collection of art and architectural artifacts.

The continuity of the white cement floors and the white plastered walls and ceilings unifies dozens of inserted objets d’art representing diverse periods, styles, and traditions.

The simple lines of the architecture itself, the collection of modern furniture, and the narrative sequencing of the plan recall the European Modernism of Le Corbusier’s Maison Citrohan (1927); the deep verandahs, the traditionally-crafted decorative artifacts, and the immediacy of the outdoors in each space reveal the strong influence of local Sri Lankan architectural traditions.


Non-structural antique wooden columns, reclaimed stone floor tiles bordering small interior gardens, and painted double-doors by Australian artist Donald Friend enliven the clean white entrance corridor.

The technique of bricolage is continued throughout the home, with Bawa’s permanent collection of sculptures, tapestries, paintings, and ornate salvaged millwork placed throughout the home and gardens. The gardens themselves become another form of decoration, their color and variety animating the white corridors of the ground floor and the spare concrete terraces of the tower.

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA. Year: 1948-1998 Century: 20th

Building Types :landscape, residential Building Usage garden, private residence The garden at Lunuganga sits astride two low hills on a promontory

which juts out into a brackish lagoon lying off the estuary of the Bentota River.the original bungalow still survives within its cocoon of added verandas, courtyards, and loggias.

Lunuganga was conceived as a scenographic sequence of spaces. The view southwards is framed by a corridor of trees and takes in

the Hill, the lake beyond and a white Buddhist dagoba on a distant hilltop: the eye runs down and up through a cone of space and leaps towards the temple and the sky.

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

This is not a garden of colourful flowers, neat borders and gurgling fountains: it is a civilised 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.

Lunuganga now seems to be so established, so natural, that it is hard to appreciate how much effort has gone into its creation. But this is a work of art, not of nature; it is the contrivance of a single mind and a hundred hands working together with nature to produce something which is ‘super-natural’. Ignore it for a week and the paths will clog up leaves; leave it for a month and the lawns will run wild; after a year the terraces will crumble and the jungle will return forever.

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

MOON DOOR

VIEW TO THE RIVER

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

RETAINING WALLS

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

Exterior view of façade contrasting built and grown forms of the rounded room and tree trunk.

Exterior view of façade of living area elevated on stilts

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

Exterior detail of window casingInterior view showing linear forms of window casings and furniture

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

LUNUGANGA, BENTOTA.

ESTATE HOUSE

EASTERN TERRACE

THE SRI LANKAN PARLIAMENT, KOTTE.

THE SRI LANKAN PARLIAMENT, KOTTE, 1979

In 1979 Bawa was asked to prepare designs for a new parliament to built at Kotte, about eight kilometers to the east of Colombo.

Bawa conceived of the Parliament as an island capitol surrounded by a new garden city of parks and public buildings. Its cascade of copper roofs would first be seen from the approach road at a distance of two kilometers floating above the new lake at the end of the Diyavanna valley.

THE SRI LANKAN PARLIAMENT The design placed the main chamber in a central pavilion

surrounded by a cluster of five satellite pavilions. Each pavilion is defined by its own umbrella roof of copper and seems to grow out of its own plinth.

Although the plinths are actually connected to form a continuous ground and first floor.

The main pavilion is symmetrical about an axis running north-south through the debating chamber, the Speaker's chair and the formal entrance portal.

The power of this axis and the scale of the main roof are diffused by the asymmetric arrangement of the lesser pavilions around it. As a result, the pavilions each retain a separate identity but join together to create a single upward sweep of roofs.

The use of copper in place of tile gives the roofs a thinness and the tent-like quality of a stretched skin alluding perhaps to the fabled 'brazen roofs' of Anuradhapura.

THE SRI LANKAN PARLIAMENT

BENTOTA BEACH HOTEL, SRI LANKA Constructed between 1967 and 1969, the Bentota Beach

Hotel is one of architect Geoffrey Bawa's most important works.

It is an iconic example of Bawa's architectural style during the 1960s, as well as the critical model for hotel design in tropical climates.

The resort is notable in that it successfully caters to a predominantly foreign clientele, meeting specific expectations in terms of desired services and amenities, while still respecting and representing the local culture in which it is set.

The building was commissioned by the Sri Lankan government.

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The hotel is located on a unique and picturesque site between two beaches in Bentota, a sixty-kilometer drive south of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The central building of the hotel is located atop an existing sand mound that was previously the site of a colonial Dutch fortification.

The building is square in plan at the first level, excepting a trapezoidal extension of the northern gallery beyond the eastern edge of the square. This projection contains service spaces for the adjacent public areas of the resort, out of the way of the principal guest circulation and major ocean views.

A simple ring of galleries surround a large open central courtyard, the entirety of which is occupied by a large rectangular reflecting pool.

The pool occupies approximately one quarter of the floor area of the first level, and it is located just southeast of the center of the plan in order to increase the relative size of the ocean-facing northern and western galleries.

BENTOTA BEACH HOTEL, SRI LANKA

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BENTOTA BEACH HOTEL, SRI LANKA Planters scattered as islands within the central pool provide

space for large trees to grow within the courtyard. The leafy canopy of trees shades the central open space and defines the ceiling of this calm interior room.

The second and third levels are each L-shaped, located atop the north and west galleries of the first level.

The second and third levels are narrower in plan than the galleries of the first level, yet Bawa elevates the floor plane of the second level above the pitched roof of the first level such that the second level to appears to cantilever over the roof of the first.

In turn, the balconies of the third level cantilever beyond those of the second level. This building profile, reminiscent of an inverted pyramid, recalls a distinctively local architectural tradition.

CENTRAL COURTYARD REFLECTION POOL

BENTOTA BEACH HOTEL, SRI LANKA The ground level of the hotel is contained within a large stone

podium built around the original sand mound. The massive stone walls are an architectural nod to the

history of Dutch fortification structures on the island, and spaces are carved into the ground behind the walls for shopping arcades as well as pedestrian circulation between the first level and the surrounding grounds.

The hotel is entered via a large porte cochère carved into the masonry podium on the eastern side of the building.

A large stone staircase leads from this partially enclosed driveway up to the reception lobby, located in the east gallery of the first level.

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The Bentota Beach Hotel contains ninety guest rooms. The brief originally called for thirty rooms, which were placed in the L-shaped second and third floors of the central building.

Additional guest wings to the north and south of the main structure were added later to increase the capacity of the hotel. These long and narrow two-story wings contain twenty and forty rooms respectively.

All guest rooms face either the Indian Ocean to the west or the Bentota River to the north, assuring all visitors spectacular views from their private balconies.

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MATERIALS A variety of natural materials were used in the structure and

decoration of the hotel. All of the building materials were locally sourced

The materials selected were intended to age well with time and exposure to the humid tropical climate.

Terracotta tiles, dark wood columns and balustrades, unfinished granite bastions, and polished concrete floors form an earthy palette of surfaces within the building.

The ceilings of the public spaces are decorated with rich batiks and hand-loomed fabrics in warm colors.

Though Bawa hoped that the building would be completely exposed to the elements in the common spaces, the client insisted that the first floor restaurant and lounges be enclosed with glass walls and air-conditioned.

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BENTOTA BEACH HOTEL, SRI LANKA A major renovation of the hotel in 1998 included the

replacement of the original clay tile roofs with green metal sheeting, the redecoration of the guest rooms and lobbies, and the reconstruction and expansion of the stone podium at the base of the building.

While Bawa personally embraced the aging of materials and the development of a patina on buildings over time, the hotel was thoroughly cleaned and all materials were sealed or replaced to make the structure appear perpetually new.

Though the renovations were made in hopes of increasing the value and luxury of the hotel as a four-star tourist destination, architectural critics have argued that the changes detract from the success of Bawa's iconic design.

QUOTES

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

"one of the most exciting moments was the opening up of vistas..not based on prearranged formality..the garden planned itself"

“It was not tied to any other world except people enjoying themselves within their capabilities.”

CONCLUSION Architect Geoffrey Bawa is now regarded as having been

one of the most important and influential Asian architects of the 20th century.

His style can be described as: ‘tropical modernism’, “sustainable architecture” and him as a “regional modernist”.

Best known for his private houses and hotels, his portfolio also included schools and universities, factories and offices, public buildings and social buildings.

Famous works:a) Number 11 33rd Lane Colombob) Lunuganga Garden, Bentota.c) Sri Lanka Parliament, Kotte.d) Bentota Beach Hotel.

BIBLIOGRAPHY The information for this presentation has been

collected from the following websites on the internet:

www.geoffreybawa.com www.wikipedia.com www.archnet.com

http://www.geoffreybawa.com/

http://www.wikipedia.com/

http://www.archnet.com/

Documents

Geoffrey Manning Bawa