The original article was written in Portuguese. Here is the translated version, hoping you to get the best of it.
GEOFFREY BAWA – Casa 33rd Lane, Colombo, 1960-98 – Fotografia de Lauryn Ishak
DWELLING GEOFFREY BAWA’S WORKS
Even some years after graduating Architecture, I was very fascinated by the idea to do research, travel to see, touch and feel the the most inspiring architectures around the world, to investigate and discover the legacy that the best architects have leaved us. And I’m talking about that kind of architecture that touches your soul, all your senses, that one that remains in your memory forever.
That’s how, in 2016, for the second consecutive year, I decided to apply to the same scholarship called Prémio Tavora, this time the 10th edition, promoted in Portugal every year and only for architects.
I don’t remember actually when exactly and how I got to know or hear about Geoffrey Bawa. But I remember how looking thought the book with his houses and other works just blown my mind.
The previous year I wrote about Luis Barragan’s work, and curiously, despite the totally opposite cultural backgrounds I do find their architecture having the same intensity… all those very sensitive spaces; complementarity between gardens and the buildings. It always fascinated me.
The fact is that all we know, all we see, how do we select to build our own inspirational background, will take part and will structure the entire creative process. It’s how as an architect, bringing to the client the best imaginary is our most serious mission.
The Proposal for the Trip
“I have the strong conviction that is impossible to explain architecture in words… I always liked to see buildings, architecture can’t be totally explained, this must be experienced.”
GEOFFREY BAWA em ROBSON, David, Geoffrey Bawa : The complete works, Thames&Hudson, 2002
Travel is not only getting from point A to B, is more than arriving to a place have a quick look around and then go to the next destination. I believe, traveling is a way to stay, and I’m not talking only about time, but more about emotional intensity that we are able to established with the places.
DWELLING Geoffrey Bawa’s works is actually possible. Experience the spaces, live in them through all the cycles of each day you spend in there, hear the silence of the night, watch it under the moonlight, feel the smell of the earth after the rain…
This pretends to be a trip where the curious eye will be fixed through photography, capturing those special environments, particular details; in order to flourish in the spirit of the people observing them that inspirational air.
The plan of the trip
Geoffrey Bawa (1919-2003) was ceylonese architect who just graduated architecture when he completed 38 years old. Getting the late graduation doesn’t hold him from becoming one of the most influential architects in Asia from his generation.
His passion for architecture developed with the trips through Europe, specially the italian gardens and villas, way before he decided to study architecture at AA in London. He was 29, when he decided to buy land to build his own residency – Lunuganga House, to which he dedicated more that 50 years building with his out hands one of the most impressive gardens of the 20th century.
Bawa has established his architectural principles, allying the memory of the atemporal lessons of the vernacular architecture of Sri Lanka with all he has visited in the western society. The vernacular architecture in Sri Lanka has nourished the way of dwelling poetically the interior spaces, and the architecture of Ceylon’s ancient cities and the Italian villas has allowed him to develop and to reach the need sensitivity in order to create the most serene compositions and the most emotional gardens.
I’m proposing myself to visit some of the hotels Bawa has built like Hotel em Bentota and Hotel Kandalama em Dambulla; but also other buildings that are open for visits as the House of Ena de Silva and the House Bartholomeusz, in Colombo; as well as the University of Ruhunu, in Matara.
BAWA & HIS BUILDINGS
In order to be able to extract what’s essencial in this buildings, one has to try to live I this places, and luckily the two of the bellowed described houses that can be arranged.
House in Lunuganga, Dedduwa, Bentota, 1948-98
This is the most significant work of Geoffrey Bawa. It was his permanent residency, and to which he dedicated his entire life to his creation by bringing it in the rank of the most important asian gardens of 20th century. This project has represented for Bawa the true laboratory, in the sense of experimenting his concepts and bringing them to reality. It has been exactly here where the relationship between building itself and the landscape is made so strong, complex and poetic.
Stay: one week, in the garden’s room, in the glass room or in the gallery room, where Baa’s art collections is hold.
33rd Lane HOUSE, Colombo, 1960-98
This is the second house that Baa’s has acquired. All Bawa’s principles are very clear and recognizable on its reconstruction. It is a house rich in courtyards, terraces and little gardens, all combined in an incredible way. It is like a labyrinth of whitewashed courtyards, where the scenographic architecture is celebrated through a sensual play with lights and shadows. It’s like a city – not a house.
Curiously, this house has been carefully refurbished, but all the furniture and art collections acquired by Bawa and mostly created by his artist-friends like Barbara Sansoni, a Laki Senanayake, etc. are in their original places. nanayake, etc.
Stay: one week, in the suite of the 1st floor. The opportunity to check the privat archives of Geoffrey Bawa – original drawing and writings.
GEOFFREY BAWA – Hotel Kandalama, Dambulla, 1991-94, in ROBSON, David, Geoffrey Bawa : The complete works, Thames&Hudson, 2002
BAWA & SRI LANKA – THE CULTURAL TRIANGLE
The ancient-city of Anuradhapura, I a.C
A rectangular walled-city, which occupies ca. 80 Ha. Gates on each cardinal point. Very complex urban design. On each road-cross an important building arrises. The archeological researches on the beginning of 20th century has revealed that the domestic architecture was constructed around courtyards – that’s how Bawa arrives to develop his concept of using courtyards, inspired directly from this erudite typology to create his own architecture.
The ancient-city of Sigiriya, 477 d.C
A city built on top of a gigantic rock in the middle of a enormous flat woods. Here are recognizable very important realizations of the urbanistic, architecture, painting and garden levels. The gardens are the most sophisticated expertise on hydraulic technics at that time, being able to build the gardens in such overlapping organic layers that creates an interesting contrast between the buildings and what’s natural – the landscape. This is the most important place that Bawa recognized as the master piece that he has followed on creating his own gardens.
The ancient-city of Polonnaruwa, XI d.C
It’s a place with a sequence of rectangular terraces contained by brick-walls. Paths and staircases are connecting this terraces to water tanks and small pavilions with columns. The spaces in-between are as important as the buildings. They are those that offer the scenographic experience in a constant change.
A CIDADE ANTIGA DE SIGIRIYA – Monte dos Leões, Sri Lanka , Photography by Bill Bevan
BAWA & ITALIAN VILLAS
While studying architecture in Europe, this gardens mentioned here become Bawa’s favorite and most inspiring places.
Garden of Villa Farnese, Caprarola, ca. 1559-75
Built by Jacopo Vignola, this representative renascence palace design with a pentagonal floor plan. But the most impressive are its gardens, called “orati farnesiani” planed by Giacomo del Duca in 1565 as a system of bridges and terraces. An enormous staircase is cutting the hill in order to reconnect the palace to the landscape till the town, with the intension to give even more importance to the building.
Garden of Villa Lante, Bagnaia, 1511-66
Probably one of the most famous italian gardens – mannerist, which design is attributed to Jacopo Vignola. Specially maintained in a “controlled” wildness in a complementary way.
“Sacro Bosco” or Villa Orsini, Bomarzo, 1552-
A garden of pure fantasy, mannerist, design by Pirro Ligorio. Full with iconographic, allegoric and oneiric figures escalated in the rocks existing there in situ. After the death of it’s mentor – the prince Orsini, the garden has been abandoned and only centuries later has been rediscovered and refurbished becoming one of the most emblematic places where artist like Salvador Dali also frequented in the 40’s (1948 precisely). It was exactly around this years that Bawa used to visit this garden and quite often, while his permanence in Rome,
Why this Trip
In order to be able to create beauty, we need to be searching for it, we need to develop our senses in order to recognize it and to live it plenty.
From Bawa we learn that in architecture in order to create something new, you must understand the principles of an old that has survived through times because of it’s quality and value. When you understand this values of a culture and filter it through our present needs, only here you’re able to bring a new which have a continuity and can be recognizable as a culture with it’s own identity. This new culture should appear as something better than the previous one that has originated the new. When it’s not like this, time will be wise enough and will erase what doesn’t matter now.
The Motivation for this Trip
It is a research proposal that comes in the continuity to the thematic explored in my master thesis – which is about the importance and quality of our esthetic experiences to a more and more complex creative process.
Consequently, this trip could represent a starting point in order to deepen this questions into a PHD research in a near future. In order to avoid discretions because the issue is so vast, this research will focus and will try to express itself under a title that could sound like “Vernacular Modernism in Architecture”. This starts with Fernando Tavora’s architecture and also his trips, passing through Geoffrey Bawa’s, Alvar Aalto’s and Luis Barragan’s architecture. The goal is to bring to others the perspective that this architects have created what we call Genius Loci – the spirit of a places – with they work which are able to reflect continuously so much beauty.
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