With hindsight this simple composition of hip-roofed pavilions can be viewed as a development model for his next major design.His works include houses, hotels, schools, clubs, offices and government buildings, most notably the Sri Lankan Parliament Building.It is no exaggeration to say that Geoffrey Bawa transformed the look of South and South-East Asia.Carmen Gunesekera House, Colombo, 1958 Upali Wijewardene House, Colombo, 1959 For more than a century Sri Lankan domestic architecture had been heavily influence by British taste.The typical British bungalow was a pavilion on one or two floors, cellular in plan, extrovert in concept and located at the centre of a large garden plot.
However the population of Sri Lanka was exploding and Colombo was rapidly evolving from leafy Garden City into modern Asian metropolis. Here the deconstructed elements were reassembled on an exploding pinwheel plan and held together by a single raking roof plane. She demanded a house which would be modern and open, but which would embody features of the traditional manor houses in which she had lived as a child. Bawas solution employed the same elements as the Galle house, but he now carved them out of a solid form. Geoffrey Bawa The Complete Works To Jpg Free Flow OfThe result is a totally introspective house which emphasises the voids as much as the solids and which allows a free flow of space from inside to outside. THE POLONTALAWA ESTATE BUNGALOW, NIKARAWETIYA, 1963 In 1963 the director of a Swiss plantation company approached Bawa to design a new managers bungalow for a remote coconut estate at Polontalawa on the banks of the DeduruOya. ![]() BUILDINGS FOR THE CATHOLIC CHURCH Convent Chapel, Bandarawela, 1961 St. Geoffrey Bawa The Complete Works To Jpg Series Of LowBridgets Montessori School, Colombo, 1963 Although not himself a Catholic, Bawa built a remarkable series of low-cost projects for the Catholic Church. The first of these, a Chapel for the Nuns of the Good Shepherd Convent in Bandarawela (1961), was the result of collaboration with Ulrik Plesner. The chapel sits on a ridge above the town and consists of a solid hulk of rubble masonry terminating in a square tower which acts as the skylight for the altar. The north side of the nave is fully glazed, its window frames forming the three crucifixes of the Calvary. The altar crucifix was designed by Laki Senanayake and the terra cotta Stations of the Cross by Barbara Sansoni. THE YAHAPATH ENDERA FARM SCHOOL, HANWELLA, 1965 The Yahapath Endera Farm School was built for orphan girls on a rubber and coconut estate about 30 kilometers to the east of Colombo. Bawa placed the various buildings on a formal orthogonal grid but they were allowed to run with the contours in section. Individual buildings were positioned carefully to define open spaces and axes and to regulate the vistas between them. THE BENTOTA BEACH HOTEL, 1968 The Bentota Beach Hotel and its neighbour the Serendib Hotel were Sri Lankas first purpose built resort hotels and immediately set the standard against which all subsequent hotels would be measured.The Serendib was a budget hotel and was conceived as a modern version a simple traditional Rest House, while the Beach Hotel offered subtle hints of a lost world of ancient palaces, medieval manor houses and colonial villas. In 1971, after obtaining a commission to extend the renowned Connemara Hotel, he opened a subsidiary office in Madras. The project offered opportunities for regular site visits and Bawa spent some time with Friend developing a master plan and studying local architectural and craft traditions. WORKING IN THE TROPICAL CITY Steel Corporation Offices, Oruwela, 1966 Agrarian Research and Training Institute, Colombo, 197 Industrial Estate, Pallakelle, 1971 State Mortgage Bank, Colombo, 1976.
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