Are you a member? LOGIN / SIGN UP MY PROFILE Update Preference Manage Collection SIGN OUT SIGN UP LOGIN MY PROFILE Update Preference Manage Collection SIGN OUT Subscribe SUBSCRIBE Architecture & Design Decorating Lifestyle Celebrity AD Design Show AD100 More Design divas season 4 AD X JSW CRAFT PRIZE 2023 The List Queo x AD100 AD100 Culture Magazine Perspective Home Magazine Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka: AD presents a cinematic storyboard of Bawa’s biopic set in his personal homes Learn all about the design goliath, of how he started out, lived and worked Share on facebook " data-post-id="176680"> " data-post-id="176680"> " data-post-id="176680"> " data-post-id="176680"> + - Channa Daswatte Published: Jul 14, 2019 | 08:00:48 IST Kshitij Kankaria Ashish Shah Geoffrey Bawa's career spanned 50 years. All photos courtesy Ashish Shah Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka: The Beginning of a Legend Geoffrey was first drawn to English landscaped gardens when he went to study law at Cambridge in the 1950s—on his mother’s insistence. He explored Renaissance gardens when he visited Italy, and on his return, rediscovered the tropical garden traditions of Sri Lanka. In 1947, he purchased Lunuganga, a rubber estate near Bentota. While making a garden to “capture the feeling” of spaces he had experienced in his youth, Geoffrey took the advice of his cousin Georgette Camille, who suggested that he do what he did best “with other peoples’ money”. Geoffrey gave up law and took to architecture. In a career spanning 50 years, he always returned to Lunuganga, an estate whose name evokes the salt river that surrounds it.
At the end of a long dirt road, dancing flames on the gateposts greeted visitors who arrived for evening gatherings in the garden. Although Geoffrey enjoyed good company and moved in the same circles as Colombo’s elite, he was a private person. He would gaze across to the little dagoba on the hill of the distant monastery and had a love for Dalmatians, three of whom he named Leopold.
The making of the garden consumed Geoffrey for over 55 years. He slowly chipped away at the landscape—like a sculptor—giving life to his imagination. The frangipani tree was actually two branches planted together and he watched them grow away from each other over the years. He occasionally nudged them into shape by hanging rocks on lower branches so that peacocks might alight on them. He liked to have his breakfast served on the concrete table with leaf impressions on it. From here, he would watch the long shadows of the morning retreat into nearby trees while savouring his string hoppers, prawn curry and coffee. Lunch was often served on the eastern edge of the red terrace, in 18th-century ‘kitchen Ming’ plates (as Geoffrey called them), Spanish glasses and ‘Mama’s’ silver from three generations.
“It’s my luggage, and I always travel with it!” said Georgette Camille exhorting the customs officer who attempted to charge duty on the 18th-century chandelier she had brought for Geoffrey as a housewarming gift. She convinced him. Only lit very rarely, it was hung over a sitting room filled with colonial furniture from the 16th to 20th centuries.
Geoffrey derived the proportions of the Sandella, or garden room, from an 18th-century shopfront, from which he created a glazed window at the back of the room. Its original window panels became the balustrade of the upper gallery. He would unroll large drawings on a vast table, made from a single plank of rain-tree wood. These drawings would often be held in place by a 17th-century St Anne figurine and 20th-century wooden car toys as paperweights. Once, over this very dining table, Geoffrey discussed the official new residence of a president of Sri Lanka, sitting in the two Bawa versions of the burgomaster chair. As for tea after siesta, Geoffrey liked it in the silver service that belonged to ‘Mama’.
Geoffrey’s study in the master bedroom overlooked a private courtyard with independent access to the gardens beyond. One of his favourite pieces of table lighting was the classic ‘Anglepoise’. It joined a collection of other lights hung to catch the rays of the setting sun through their cut-glass shades. He lived simply. His indulgences, however, included foreign travel, automobiles and things of absolute beauty. He put up an old print of the Villa del Emo, bought on the streets of Rome. Flanking the bed, he had an antique window painted with gilt-backed illustrations of birds by artist Laki Senanayake. He took a liking to the minimal work of Riten Mazumdar, and brought back the textile designer’s bedspreads from Fabindia of the 1970s. An old kerosene-operated fan whirred, at a time when Lunuganga had no electricity.
Geoffrey’s father, Benjamin, died when Geoffrey was only three. His brother Bevis and he were brought up by their mother in Chapman House, a large villa on Darley Road in Colombo. Lunuganga, his eventual home, was a coming together of pieces from around the world and heirlooms. The barely used Biedermeier-style dining table is from Geoffrey’s parental home. One of two 18th-century tamarind-wood cupboards from the southern provinces flank the table and a 19th-century burgomaster chair. The Romanesque sculpture of a child bishop is likely of European provenance and was sent to Sri Lanka in a box simply marked “One Bishop”.
Tall and strikingly handsome, Geoffrey would settle down alone or with friends for sundowners of arrack and ice, or the occasional gin, on the northern terrace overlooking the Honduwa island. The little kink in the terrace allowed him to look at the sun setting even when it was furthest south. He was fond of smoking and a locally made cast-brass ashtray—a version of a Beck & Jung pressed-aluminium design—was a constant presence, until he was warned about the perils of smoking. He quit overnight.
Like most plantation houses of the time, the main house, built in 1920, occupied a prominent bluff on the landscape. Geoffrey opened the views north towards the lake and south across Cinnamon Hill towards the distant dagoba of the Katukuliya temple. The house became a camera in the garden. In the mornings, when Geoffrey opened the door of his private courtyard in the bedroom, his view would be the blushing young leaves of a Na (Mesua ferrea) tree as it caught the light of dawn and the sweet smell of its flowers wafted in.
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