Bentota, Sri Lanka
6° 25' N 79° 59' E
Feb 03, 2008 08:18
Distance 42km

earlier Entry 15 of 58 later
You need to upgrade your Flash Player Click here to start downloading FlashPlayer!

Geoffrey Bawa - Lunuganga Garden

Text written in: English

Geoffrey Bawa was Sri Lanka's premier architect up until his death a couple of years ago.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Bawa 

This garden was his main residence, which also housed an artists' retreat.  The ground of the garden are huge!  it took us all afternoon to go through it all.  

Something to point out is that Bawa came from a place of privelage.  He was actually an established lawyer before he took an active occupational change to architecture.  Most of his buildings are for the wealthy and powerful of Sri Lanka.  So you probably have an idea of what I think of his architecture.  Having said that though, he really was able to use the bountiful resources he had at his disposal to create beautiful spaces that blurred the distinction between indoor space and natural exterior space, which Sri Lanka is surrounded by.  So though i felt a bit poshy and yuppie in his garden estate, i still found beauty in his spaces.

 On the other hand though, I still felt that the architecture was not of anything special.  In fact, the interior decor of the estate was essentially an art gallery to display his collection of colonial and western art.

 

Just trying to get to the garden estate was quite a lesson in directions in South Asia.  There was no address or exact knowledge of where the house was.  Our professor knew the "area" it was in.  So once we get to the area, we hop out of the large out-of-place bus into a little store to ask if they know where the Bawa Watte is.  They point us the general direction, without any specific directions.  We drive in that general direction, until we reach another store, hop out, ask, get pointed again.  This goes on maybe 5 times until we finally travers through scrub jungle and rice fields to 2 iron gates at the bottom of a hill.  And we've arrived. 

Photos / videos of "Geoffrey Bawa - Lunuganga Garden":

earlier Entry 15 of 58 later
You need to upgrade your Flash Player Click here to start downloading FlashPlayer!