Geoffrey Bawa

INTRODUCTION The Architecture of Geoffrey Bawa has influenced not only Sri Lanka but also the south Asian countries. His works have been described as regional, traditional, culturally rich and often though with some qualification, modern. His projects are a synthesis of Modernist vocabulary and distinct contextual elements, rooted in regional identity and lifestyle of users. Bawa is very much a man of the end of the era - especially when seen in the context of modern movement in the west - because he was trained abroad, is widely read and widely travelled. His architecture seeks to create a situation where man and nature can commune. His work is manifested by two essential factors of time and geography. Rarely do his designs allow architecture to pre-empt the primordial importance of natural surrounding, either by scale or use of material. His most celebrated works are creation of places for vistas onto nature. Barbara Sansoni in Brian Brace Taylor’s “Geoffrey Bawa” aptly quotes - “Arguably, Geoffrey Bawa’s architecture has a meaning to a Sri Lankan far beyond it may have to a foreigner. To Sri Lankans it represents the distillation of centuries of shared experience and links at first level of achievement, its architecture to that of the modern world.” 1 Bawa’s architecture is significant to our times as it suspends between the dichotomies that derives the contemporary architectural debates - regional vs. global, spiritual vs. telematic, traditional vs. futuristic and east vs. west. More important, it is significant to us, developing south Asian countries, which with the present day globalisation have not completely lost their culture. This dissertation attempts to understand critical regionalism and its features, and why it is important to us today. Today because we too are following the trends of the developed world and repeating their mistakes. The dissertation also describes and analyses the works of Geoffrey Bawa to identify him as a critical regionalist.