INDIA!!: The Fabulous Bawa Boys

The Bawa boys were like Sri Lankan royalty. Geoffrey Bawa was a prolific and world famous architect and his older brother, Bevis Bawa (yes, that's right), a celebrated landscape architect, artist, social gadfly and bonvivant.
Geoffrey was known for his love of bringing the outdoors inside and vice-versa in his open plan designs His work was characterised by the creation of long vistas, breezeways and galleries - often flowing into open spaces or courtyards. Check this open air gallery/corridor at the Lighthouse Hotel in Galle.

He was unusually (for the time) sympathetic to the local environment, as seen in the Kandalama Hotel, Dambulla, at left, which he designed in the 1990.s. It looks like it grew out of the rock face.

His first hotel was the Bentota Beach Hotel, built in 1968. I loved the pool. It was a great idea to retain a lot of the natural rock, to form part of its walls and floor, as you can see in these two pictures. In fact he uses stone throughout the hotel

This large courtyard pool is the central feature of the hotel, and all of the main public rooms are arranged around its perimeter.

Above right is the reception area, unremarkable except for the ceiling which showcases these stunning batik panels. Unfortunately the hotel is about to be "modernised" and the panels are going, for God's ake.

Below are two views of the courtyards which flank the main building, above the pool area. He's used an interesting trompe l'oeuil effect by elongating the far corner so that from a distance it looks like the floor is going uphill.

Bawa died in 2003 after a stroke. He left quite a legacy, including hotels, universities, private houses, parliament house in Colombo and other government buildings. Especially remarkable, given that he didn't start until he was 38 years of age.

His elder brother Bevis was an interesting character. Born in 1909 to a Sri Lankan father and a Dutch descended mother,at 6 foot 7 inches he stood out from the crowd, shall we say - especially amongst the diminutive Sri Lankans. His bolthole was "Brief Garden" about 10 miles inland from Geoffrey's Bentota Beach Hotel. Why "brief" ?? I expected something romantic from an artist - maybe brief love, brief life etc, but no...turns out his father was a very successful criminal lawyer and he bought the property with the income from one "brief" or case.

Bought as a rubber plantation, BB turned it into a lovely garden and built his house on top of the little hill at its centre. It became an ornament to Sri Lankan social life and a bit of a staging post for itinerant luminaries, such as his mates, the Duke of Windsor, Laurence Olivier and Vivienne Leigh. The Oliviers stayed there while "Bridge over the River Kwai" was filmed. Leigh was also there for a while during the filming of "Elephant Walk" but then had her famous nervous breakdown and was replaced by Elizabeth Taylor, I think.

Lots of artists passed through, including Oz artist Donald Friend, the one who lived in Bali all those years.

Friend is said to have come for 6 days and stayed 6 years. Bawa eventually built him a little cottage out the back (now since pulled down)

The current owners have stacks of art by Friend and other mates who would drop by for a month or three. Another buddie was Sri Lanks most famous painter - Laki Senanayake. Amongst other things, he did this mural in the dining room The garden is not huge, but cleverly broken up by stands of bamboo, hedges and trees into little gardenettes (I made that word up), nooks and crannies which afford privacy, and beautiful little areas for contemplation.