Geoffrey Bawa

Deshamanya Geoffrey Manning Bawa, (23 July 191927 May 2003) was a Sri Lankan architect. Often referred to as the leader of the Tropical Modernist movement, he was among the most influential Asian architects of his generation.

Early life Geoffrey Bawa was born in Colombo on 23 July 1919, the younger of the two sons of Major Benjamin Bawa, a Sri Lankan lawyer who was partly of European parentage, and Bertha Marianne née Schrader, a Burgher of mixed Sinhalese, German and Scottish descent. His older brother, Bevis, became a landscape architect. By the time he was 28 years old, he had spent a third of his life away from Sri Lanka. During his time in Italy, he planned to buy a villa and settle down, but that did not happen, and by 1948 he had returned to Sri Lanka.

Bawa bought an abandoned rubber estate on the south-west coast of the island between Colombo and Galle at Lunuganga,

Career in architecture Returning to Ceylon, he became a partner of Messrs. Edwards, Reid and Begg, Colombo in 1958. In 1959, Danish architect Ulrik Plesner joined the firm, and the two designed many buildings together.

Plesner left the island in 1967. 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.

In 1979, President J. R. Jayewardene invited Bawa to design Sri Lanka's new Parliament building at Kotte. The project was completed in 1982 with the help of a firm of Japanese contractors, Mitsui.

Later life and death

In 1982, Bawa established the Geoffrey Bawa Trust with the aim of furthering the fields of architecture, fine arts and environmental studies. In the early 1990s, Bawa suffered a series of strokes that left him ill.

List of works Bawa's work was mainly in Sri Lanka, but included several other countries as well: nine times in India, three times in Indonesia, twice in Mauritius and once in Fiji, and Singapore. His works include houses, hotels, schools, clubs, offices and government buildings, most notably the Sri Lankan Parliament Building.

Awards and fellowships Pan Pacific Citation, Hawaii Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (1967) President, Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (1969) Inaugural Gold Medal at the Silver Jubilee Celebration of the Sri Lanka Institute of Architects (1982) Heritage Award of Recognition, for "Outstanding Architectural Design in the Tradition of Local Vernacular Architecture", for the new Parliamentary Complex at Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte from the Pacific Area Travel Association. (1983) Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects Elected Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (1983) Conferred title of Vidya Jothi (Light of Science) in the Inaugural Honours List of the President of Sri Lanka (1985) The Grate Master's Award 1996 incorporating South Asian Architecture Award (1996) The Architect of the Year Award, India (1996) Asian Innovations Award, Bronze Award – Architecture, Far Eastern Economic Review (1998) The Chairman's Award of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture in recognition of a lifetime's achievement in and contribution to the field of architecture (2001) Awarded Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa), University of Ruhuna (14 September 2002)