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Geoffery Bava

Geoffrey Bawa was born in 1919 to wealthy mixed European and Sri Lankan parents in Sri Lanka. He studied English and law in the UK, becoming a barrister in 1944. Upon returning to Sri Lanka after World War II, he practiced law but lost interest and traveled for two years before deciding to pursue architecture at age 38. He gained qualifications in architecture in the 1950s and returned to Sri Lanka, where he took over an architectural practice and gathered other young designers, helping establish a new indigenous architectural style that incorporated local materials and crafts. Bawa went on to design many important buildings in Sri Lanka, including the influential parliament building in 1982, which was sited over water and blended modern and traditional regional influences

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99 views1 page

Geoffery Bava

Geoffrey Bawa was born in 1919 to wealthy mixed European and Sri Lankan parents in Sri Lanka. He studied English and law in the UK, becoming a barrister in 1944. Upon returning to Sri Lanka after World War II, he practiced law but lost interest and traveled for two years before deciding to pursue architecture at age 38. He gained qualifications in architecture in the 1950s and returned to Sri Lanka, where he took over an architectural practice and gathered other young designers, helping establish a new indigenous architectural style that incorporated local materials and crafts. Bawa went on to design many important buildings in Sri Lanka, including the influential parliament building in 1982, which was sited over water and blended modern and traditional regional influences

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Insi Dious Ar
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Geoffrey Bawa was born in 1919 to wealthy parents of mixed European and Ceylonese descent.

He was educated at the prestigious Royal College after which he studied English and Law at Cambridge gaining a BA (English Literature Tripos) and went on to read law at Middle Temple, London becoming a Barrister in 1944. Returning to Ceylon after the war he started working for a Colombo Law firm. But soon he left to travel for two years, almost settling in Italy. Only after this did he turned to architecture at the age of 38.

He became apprenticed to the architectural practice of Edwards Reid and Begg in Colombo after he advanced his education in architecture by gaining a Diploma in Architecture from Architectural Association, London in 1956 and in the following year he became an Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects whereupon he returned to Ceylon becoming a partner of Messrs. Edwards, Reid and Begg, Colombo in 1958. Bawa became an Associate of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects in 1960. An ensuing close association with a coterie of like-minded artists and designers, including Ena de Silva, Barbara Sansoni and Laki Senanayake, produced a new awareness of indigenous materials and crafts, leading to a post colonial renaissance of culture.

"Bawa finally qualified as an architect in 1957 at the age of thirty-eight and returned to Ceylon to take over what was left of Reid's practice. He gathered together a group of talented young designers and artists who shared his growing interest in Ceylon's forgotten architectural heritage, and his ambition to develop new ways of making and building. ... "The practice established itself as the most respected and prolific in Sri Lanka, with a portfolio that included religious, social, cultural, educational, governmental, commercial and residential buildings, creating a canon of prototypes in each of these areas. It also became the springboard for a new generation of young Sri Lankan architects. "

National Parliament Building, Kotte, Sri Lanka, 1982.

In 1979 Bawa was invited to design Sri Lanka's new parliament. He transformed a swampy site to create an island at the center of a vast artificial lake, with the parliament building appearing as an asymmetric composition of copper roofs floating above a series of terraces rising out of the water. The parliament building incorporates abstract references to traditional Sri Lankan and South Indian architecture within a Modernist framework to create, in the words of the Aga Khan awards jury, "a powerful image of democracy, cultural harmony, continuity and progress, and a sense of gentle monumentality."

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