A gargantuan, grinning head of Pan; a frangipani branching out in all directions like the Tree of Life; a Roman statue perched high on a garden wall, overlooking a vast lake; an old lamppost shrouded by a jungle, reminiscent of a tropical Narnia.
These are but a few of the surreal visual delights within the grounds of Lunuganga, the country estate of Sri Lanka’s late, great architect Geoffrey Bawa. But first you have to find it, off a winding road through Bentota, about two hours south of Colombo. Its only marker is an iron gate with a brass bell above it. I pull on its cord to signal my arrival and someone comes to lead me up a steep path to the sprawling property and its collection of guesthouses, rented out and maintained by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust.
The Tree of Life: a frangipani tree, one of the many attractions in the gardens. Paul Gapper / Alamy Stock Photo
I’m here with a group from Anantara, which recently reawakened Bawa’s original design for a hotel in Kalutara, about 45 minutes north of Lunuganga. Bawa’s ill-fated hotel project had been delayed in the mid-1990s by the civil war, then put aside after his death in 2003; a year later, the Boxing Day tsunami wiped out most of the construction. For its second resort in Sri Lanka, Anantara commissioned an architect who worked for Bawa, Channa Daswatte of MICD Associates, to complete the project, between the Indian Ocean and the Kalu Ganga. It’s most striking for its gabled roof, covering a vast open-air reception hall that leads out on to the water.
It’s just about impossible to visit Sri Lanka without encountering a building designed or influenced by Bawa, who designed new buildings and remodelled traditional ones on a scale from small to grand: from homes to hotels, schools to office towers. Travel companies organise architectural tours to his most prominent buildings – most notably the Sri Lankan Parliament Complex, an imperial-sized cluster of copper-roofed pavilions that look as if they’re floating on a lake, in Kotte, just east of Colombo, completed in the early 1980s.
As one of the architects of tropical modernism, Bawa merged outdoor and indoor, traditional and contemporary, in buildings that frame the landscape and interact with the environment. Think colonnades, overhanging pitched roofs, reflecting pools, interior courtyards and natural ventilation.
Many of these principles are reflected in Lunuganga, which is where Bawa began. He bought the property, which had served as both a rubber and cinnamon plantation, in the late 1940s, before the start of his architecture career. While still working as a lawyer in Colombo, he transitioned into architecture, beginning as a partner in Edwards, Reid and Begg in the 1950s, then, in the 1990s, forming Geoffrey Bawa and Associates. Throughout this time, Bawa was remodelling the hills and houses of Lunuganga for his own pleasure.
The black-and-white floors of Lunuganga, where guests can pay to stay overnight. Paul Gapper / Alamy Stock Photo
Our guide Rohan, who shows us around the terraced grounds that lead down to Dedduwa Lake, describes the property as Bawa’s “training place”; a “little experiment” where he thought about “how to connect with nature”. This is evident in the breezy resting place down around the Water Garden, in the windmill on top of a turret on Cinnamon Hill and in the jackfruit tree that shoots through the overhang of a guesthouse roof near the Red Terrace. It certainly enhances my own connection with nature.
While walking around, I encounter three things I didn’t even know existed: the blue olives dotting the ground, the green-apple-like fruit of the balsa tree and the exotic cannonball flower near the entrance court.
While you can’t enter the buildings unless you’re an overnight guest, it’s possible to glance inside them, at their black-and-white floors and recycled Dutch tiles, still decorated with Bawa’s own furniture and decorative items from different eras.
The work of his artist friends is also on show: the smiling-face planters by Australian Donald Friend; a leopard sculpture, looking out over Dedduwa Lake, by Italian Lydia Duchini; and a mural by Sri Lankan Laki Senanayake.
The author Michael Ondaatje, who used Lunuganga as a setting in his book Anil's Ghost, wrote of Bawa's estate: "Each vista, each location feels like another elegy or another voice … You discover you wish to be at one location at noon, another at twilight, some when you are young, others later in life."
Ondaatje referred to Lunuganga as Bawa’s “self-portrait”; and indeed, to understand the man who shaped so many of Sri Lanka’s modern spaces, there’s no better place to begin.
For more about Geoffrey Bawa or to visit Lunuganga or his residence in Colombo, go to www.geoffreybawa.com. Admission costs 1,250 Sri Lankan rupees (Dh31); guided tours and overnight stays are available on request.
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Where to stay: Bawa-designed hotels in Sri Lanka
Anantara Kalutara. Courtesy: Anantara Kalutara
While it’s possible to arrange a stay in one of Lunuganga’s six suites or in Geoffrey Bawa’s Colombo residence Number 11, guests looking for a full-fledged hotel experience have several options. Here’s a selection from around the island.
Anantara Kalutara Resort
The most recent Bawa project in Sri Lanka, based on a design completed after his death in 2003, is a 45-minute drive from Lunuganga. Architecture enthusiasts will want to spend time in the resort’s Geoffrey Bawa Library, which displays drawings from his archive and batik designs by his friends Ena de Silva and Barbara Sansoni, the woman behind Sri Lanka’s popular Barefoot shops. Rooms cost from US$394 (Dh1,447) a night, including breakfast and taxes.
Paradise Road The Villa Bentota
In Bawa’s stamping grounds, not far from Lunuganga, this 15-room boutique hotel now falls under the umbrella of Paradise Road, Colombo’s much-loved design retailer (its Gallery Cafe, in a courtyard of Bawa’s old Colombo offices, is also worth a visit). It was refurbished in keeping with Bawa’s conversion of a 19th-century Dutch home into Sri Lanka’s first boutique hotel, the Mohotti Walauwa. Rooms cost from $222 (Dh815) a night, including breakfast and taxes.
[ www.paradiseroadhotels.com ]
Heritance Kandalama
This large but understated eco resort, with a green roof and planted walls, was built in the 1990s to blend in with the hills near Dambulla, north of Kandy, with views of Sigiriya Rock. Rooms cost from $325 (Dh1,194), including breakfast and taxes.
[ www.heritancehotels.com/kandalama ]
The Last House
This Manor House boutique hotel in a colourful six-bedroom, two-storey villa was Bawa’s last commission (hence the title) and is set in a tropical garden on the beach in Tangalle. Rooms cost from about $165 (Dh606), including breakfast and taxes.
Bentota Beach by Cinnamon
One of Sri Lanka’s first hotel resorts, it was commissioned by the Sri Lankan government in the 1960s, early in Bawa’s career. Rooms cost from $103 (Dh378), including breakfast and taxes.
[ www.cinnamonhotels.com/bentotabeachbycinnamon ]
The Blue Water Wadduwa
The last hotel project supervised by Bawa faces the water in Wadduwa, about 30 kilometres south of Colombo. Rooms cost from $170 (Dh624), including breakfast and taxes.
Jetwing Lighthouse Galle
Another one of Bawa’s last projects, this 60-room hotel was built on a rocky promontory overlooking Galle Harbour. Rooms cost from $321 (Dh1,179), including taxes.
[ www.jetwinghotels.com/jetwinglighthouse ]
mgannon@thenational.ae
