Geoffrey Bawa: the complete works - Bawa Beatified - Book Review

Architectural Review, The, June, 2003 by Michael Brawne

By David Robson. London: Thames & Hudson. 2002. [pounds sterling]45

Geoffrey Bawa worked at the cusp of the colonial and post-colonial periods in Ceylon. One of the great strengths of Robson's beautifully produced hook is that he makes this duality clear and explores its implications. Bawa's education, cultural background, rootedness to a place, always belonged to two worlds--so much so that, at the age of 29, he seriously thought of settling permanently in Italy.

This early background is particularly significant since Bawa came to architecture late, having first practised as a British barrister but, as he put it, 'I wasn't very good at it; all my clients got imprisoned or hanged'. He was eventually much happier at the Architectural Association where, uncharacteristically for the time, Frank Lloyd Wright was his preferred modern architect. Many years later in 1977, he told Channa Daswatte, latterly Bawa's principal associate, 'the AA gave me a discipline, though it didn't push me in a particular direction, which is why it was so good'.

Bawa spent the next 40 years developing a direction for himself which was never rigid, and which became a humanist architecture with an influence well beyond the confines of Sri Lanka. It is this which also makes Robson's hook so relevant and timely but sadly, because of its price, out of reach of so many who most need to see it.

One of Bawa's early influential contributions was to rethink the urban house in the wet tropics. Instead of putting the building in the middle of the plot, he considered the whole plot as a building and then gouged out open spaces to provide light and cross ventilation. This was an adaptation of the Pompeiian/Islamic plan. It made privacy possible on confined sites increasingly common in Colombo and elsewhere.

This theme was brilliantly explored in the Ena de Silva house of 1960-62. The house is densely illustrated in black and white photographs that emphasize structure, texture, and the control of light. These also try and convey the architectural promenade which Bawa devised from the blank wall to the street onwards. Such a controlled sequence of images became frequently the hallmark of Bawa's architecture, as did the use of a large roof--totally appropriate in a monsoon climate--on his designs for houses, hotels, the Parliament Complex, a university, and other building types in Sri Lanka, Bali, India and Mauritius. Bawa's final built project, the house on the south coast, has a huge, slightly sloping roof hovering above a totally open unenclosed and undivided sitting area; it is the distillation of decades of experience. It is sad to have to write 'final' as also is the subtitle of the book 'the complete works'. Though Bawa is still alive (M arch 2003), he is unable to communicate after his second severe stroke. We have, however, a legacy, which we are able to enjoy and attempt to understand. There are three essential steps: to buy the book; get an airline ticket to Sri Lanka--it is a wonderful island; and to go and see and touch Bawa's buildings.