Bawa has done it...so can we

GEOFFREY BAWA (1919-2003) is regarded as Sri Lanka's most prolific and influential architect. His work has had tremendous impact upon architecture throughout Asia and is acclaimed worldwide by connoisseurs as well as critics of architecture.His practice created a canon of works in the private and institutional realm and became the springboard for a new generation of young Sri Lankan architects.

It is a worthwhile exploration to understand for oneself whether, the “Geoffrey Bawa Style”,that is often looked at or invoked as the best blend of Landscape and Building, is just a patina or whether we have been reading the real lessons contained in his work. In this regard, Bawa's work for his own house at Lunuganga- arguably his finest and generally the first in terms of memory recall- offers clues about some of his approaches towards Nature and Landscape.

SETTING

The site had previously been used by the Dutch as a cinnamon plantation and a British rubber estate and, like many of Sri Lanka's landscapes, it is a man-made creation.
The site straddles two low hills on a promontory which juts out into the Dedduwa Lake, a sleepy backwater of the Bentota River. A mile away to the west is the beach and the Indian Ocean. To the east beyond the rubber plantation and rice-carpetted valleys, lies the Sinharaja, Sri Lanka's primeval rain- forest. This is amongst the wettest and most fertile regions of Sri Lanka.

THE DESIGN
As with all his other projects, here too, Geoffrey Bawa made constant and conscious efforts to co-act with nature. If, however, nature was not always prepared to lend itself to his purpose, he was quite happy to bend it to his will. It is this mastery of both methods that is silently revealed at Lunuganga.

The embryo of the design is that the garden is similar to the great gardens of Renaissance Italy and 18th century England- conceived as a series of contained spaces, to be moved through at leisure, or to be occupied at particular times.
On the degraded site, visual context was generated, albeit forcefully, by progressive alteration carried out to a hill (Cinnamon Hill- named after the Colonial cinnamon plantation) to relate the site with a temple in the distant landscape.
Trees and large shrubs were trained for specific foliar effects to accentuate the green- on- green monochrome composition in an ever changing play of light
Works of art were carefully placed to form objects for contemplation, punctuation marks on routes, pointers or distance beacons.
Careful selection of plant material yielded a civilized wilderness, as opposed to the European gardens of flowers and fountains. Hence the various pavilions and terraces constructed over the years appear now simply to have grown out of the ground.
The limits of this garden, can be inspected by a brisk walk in within half an hour, but appears larger and elaborate than actual. This is largely due to the sequencing and articulation of space, with a succession of hidden surprises and stunning vistas

Pointers to Bawa's Interpretation of Regionalism-

The Nomenclature for the project: 'Lunuganga', in Sinhalese, means 'salt river', describing the saline-estuarine character of the Bentota.

Use of European models of the Garden to create an essentially Asian experience. Some of the components include
The Bosco, (Italian term for wooded grove within a garden)
Creating Open Vistas for an extended landscape perception
Use of the “Ha-Ha” (sunken fence) to mask site edges.
Use of Eye catchers like sculptures and large vases, to punctuate the landscape.

The use of local materials and traditional treatment of details.

The final plan is the result from accretion, exploiting visual accents and accidents with a strong sense of structured composition, achieved by manipulation of Nature.The intense devotion to composing architecture in an intimate relationship with nature, hides the crafting required to the control terrain, vegetation and vista for the sake of architecture. It is easy to get carried away by the visuals into doing the same with other sites, simply because "Bawa has done it...".

Today Lunuganga with its blurred distinction of Inside Vs Outside, masks the effort invested into its creation. The maintenance required to keep it the way Bawa designed it, is not immediately apparent. Here, vast quantities of earth have been moved, fuIly grown trees and shrubs have been imported, branches have been carefuIly weighed down with stones to train them. Much of nature has been altered, to create a naturalistic setting. This ideology has not changed much in our design methods today, in a quest for instant landscapes. And then again there is the phrase "Bawa has done it...".

For all of us who borrow generously from this Master, it would be worthwhile to decipher the subtle and the radical evolution in Bawa’s philosophy and its impact on his later buildings when scrutinized through the lens of nature and energy. Such studies can truly pinpoint an architect’s own evolution beyond stylistic notions and other ideologies- a point which goes unnoticed at times, simply because of the outstanding qualities of one or two iconic works. It would also help us navigate ourselves in the realm of architecture beyond mere “visual” recall of spaces while associating architectural examples with its Masters like Bawa.

The point really is about not copying but studying an architect… then another architect…and another…