Bawa, one of Asia’s most influential architects, radically changed how people lived and worked, inspiring generations of architects across the region to challenge and transform the built environment. 

The Guardian puts it best: "Bawa's portfolio of work included religious, social, cultural, educational, governmental, commercial and residential buildings, and in each of these areas he established a canon of new prototypes. Early experiments in what was known as tropical modernism were tempered by a growing interest in Sri Lanka's traditional architecture and building materials. This led to the development of an architecture that was a blend of both modern and traditional, of east and west, of formal and picturesque, that broke down the barriers between inside and outside, between building and landscape, and that offered a blueprint for new ways to live and work in a tropical city."

Whilst this observation well sets out the context for his achievements, it has yet to capture the liberating experience of moving about within one of his buildings. His city houses are typically centred around an inner courtyard, one wisely constructed to keep the focus personal - all the better to keep the foolish world at bay. Within its cool, quiet spaces, there is intimacy, peace, the space to think and live with minimal interruptions. The homes he built in the countryside, not least for himself at Lunuganga, enlist fields, plantations, hills and valleys as extra rooms; the built landscape opens out onto the natural one, a series of interconnected rooms that sometimes seem to end only at the horizon. His public buildings were clean, massive, confident occupations of space, rooms opening into one another, breathing together like a single organic city, a lofty forest of light cement, glass, wood and plants.

A lawyer who retrained as an architect, Bawa spent much of his youth partying or studying in Europe, especially in the UK. Independence in 1948 brought him back to the country of his birth with renewed vigour. A Burgher mix of Sinhalese, German and Scottish, he came from that slim, rich, impossibly lavish section of society that flared briefly with barely a care in the world until the ethic and political demons caught up in the country’s daily life, enmeshing it in civil war and economic chaos.

As many of his contemporaries fled, Bawa stayed put, building first his own home in Lunuganga, and then an architectural practice that promoted his new vision of architecture - not just in Sri Lanka but in India, Indonesia, Mauritius, Japan, Pakistan, Fiji, Egypt and Singapore too. His homes in Bentota and Colombo magnetised all who had talent and originality, local or traveller, and his parties and gift for hospitality are still talked about today.

His parents must have done something right, for both Bawa and his brother were not just gay but also hugely talented landscape gardeners, and their adjoining country house gardens would put to shame anything better known in Florence, Oxfordshire, or the South of France.

Should your week ahead look a little pedestrian, give it some purpose by taking a trip around all his surviving Sri Lankan buildings. 

The easiest ones to visit are his old office – now the Gallery Café, which offers a heart-warming menu of martinis; his old home in Colombo - Number 11; 33rd Lane, Bagatelle Road, Colombo 03 – now a museum, but one you can spend the night at; and his country house, Lunuganga in Bentota; also now a museum cum hotel.

The balance of his surviving architecture is:

1. 1948–97 Lunuganga Garden, Bentota. Open to the public.

2. 1958–62 Classrooms for St. Thomas’ School, Galle Road, Colombo.

3. 1960–61 House & Surgery for Dr Ash de Silva in Galle; a private residence.

4. 1960–62 Estate Bungalow, Strathspey Estate, Maskeliya. By appointment only.

5. 1959–60 Offices for Automobile Association, Sir Marcan Markar Maw, Colombo.

6. 1960–69 Bawa’s Own Townhouse, 33rd Lane, Bagatelle Road, Colombo 3. Admission by ticket.

7. 1961–63 Bartholomeusz House, 2 Alfred House Gardens, Colombo 3, now The Gallery Café.

8. 1961–62 Nazareth Chapel for Good Shepherd Convent, Bandarawela. Open by permission.

9. 1961–63 Flats for Mrs AF Wijemanna on Ananda Coomaraswamy Maw., Colombo 7. Private residences.

10. 1962–64 House for Chris & Carmel Raffel, Ward Place, Colombo 7. A private residence.

11. 1963–65 House for Leela Dias Bandaranayake, Mount Lavinia. A private residence.

12. 1963–64 Montessori School for St. Bridget’s Convent, Maitland Crescent, Colombo 7. By appointment only.

13. 1963–65 Estate Bungalow For Baur & Co., Polontalawa, By appointment only.

14. 1965–66 Classroom block for Ladies College, Ernest de Silva Mawatha, Colombo 7. By appointment only.

15. 1965–66 YWCA Building, Rotunda Gardens, Colombo. A public building.

16. 1966–69 Steel Corporation, offices, & staff housing in Oruwela. By appointment only.

17. 1967–69 House for Pieter Keuneman, now a beauty salon, Inner Flower Road, Colombo 3. Access by permission.

18. 1967–69 Bentota Resort, Railway Station & Tourist Village, Bentota. All public buildings.

19. 1967–73 Bentota Beach Hotel, Bentota. A public building.

20. 1967–74 Serendib Hotel, Bentota. A public building.

21. 1969–70 Public Library, Kalutara. A public building.

22. 1969–71 Office Development opposite Matara Bus Station. A public building.

23. 1970–72: 4-row houses for FC de Saram, 5th Lane, Colombo 3. Only two remain, both private residences.

24. 1971–73 House for Stanley de Saram, Cambridge Place, Colombo 7. A private residence.

25. 1972–74 House conversion for Mr & Mrs H.E. Tennakoon in Bagatelle Road. A private residence.

26. 1973–76 Neptune Hotel, Beruwala. A public building.

27. 1974–76 Agrarian Research & Training Institute, Wijerama Maw., Colombo 7. Access by permission.

28. 1975–77 National Institute for Management Studies, Vidya Maw., Colombo. Access by permission.

29. 1975–79 Offices for State Mortgage Bank, Hyde Park Corner, Darley Road, Colombo. A public building.

30. 1976–78 Seema Malaka Ordination Temple, Beira Lake, Colombo. A public building.

31. 1978–80 Integral Education Centre, Subodhi, Bolgoda Lake. Access by permission.

32. 1978–80 House for Lidia Gunasekera, 87, Galle Road, Bentota. Now a guest house.

33. 1978–79 Tourist Police Station, Galle Road, Beruwala. A public building.

34. 1978–81 Heritance Triton Hotel, Ahungalla. A public building.

35. 1978–80 Staff Housing for the Ministry of Power, Sarana Rd, Colombo 7. Private residences.

36. 1979 The Ratnasivaratnam House, Bhaudaloka Mawatha, Geoffrey Bawa, Colombo.

37. 1979–82 New Sri Lanka Parliament, Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte. Access by special permission.

38. 1980–88 Ruhunu University Campus, Matara. Access by appointment.

39. 1982–83 Vocational Training Centre, Ladies College, Inner Flower Road, Colombo 3. Access by appointment.

40. 1982–83 Pilgrims’ Rest House, Anuradhapura. A public building.

41. 1984–86 Stable conversion for Sunethra, Bandaranaike Horagolla. A private residence.

42. 1985–86 House for Richard Fitzherbert, Dikwella, Tangalle. Now a guest house.

43. 1985–91 House for Cecil & Chloe de Soysa. Off Dharmapala Maw., Colombo 3. A private residence.

44. 1990 Remodelling & extension to Sinbad Hotel, Kalutara. A public building.

45. 1991–94 Kandalama Heritance Hotel, Dambulla. A public building.

46. 1991–95 House for Rohan & Dulanjalee Jayakody, Park Street, Colombo 2. A private residence.

47. 1995–97 Lighthouse Hotel, Galle. A public building.

48. 1996–98 Blue Water Hotel, Waduwa. A public building.

49. 1997-98 House for Pradeep Jayawardene, Red Cliffs, Mirissa. A private residence.

1997–98 House for David Spencer, Rosemead Place, Colombo 7. A private residence.

Baldaeus’ Invasion Map

Published by Awnsham & John Churchill, this 1740 map of Colombo is based on the works of Philippus Baldaeus, who intended to conquer Ceylon (Sri Lanka) in the late 1650s. Baldaeus was a Dutch minister who went to Jaffna with an invading Dutch force, where he also documented the life, language and culture of the Tamil residents. His drawings were worked up into a more detailed map by Awnsham Churchill, who had a flourishing business in bookselling, stationery, and publishing in Paternoster Row, London. He went on to help establish the Bank of England.

The Bellin-Jaffna Map

Published in 1764 by Jacques-Nicolas Bellin, this remarkable map is one of the earliest and most detailed views of the city from a European perspective. The Dutch fort is the most prominent structure, surrounded by neat houses and gardens. Jaffna became a Dutch administrative centre for the VOC, and the details on the map draw heavily on the maps and descriptions of the earlier traveller and minister Philip Baldaeus, who visited Jaffna and wrote a detailed account of his life and times in the mid-17th century. Jacques-Nicolas Bellin himself was one of the greatest 18th-century map makers, appointed to the French Hydrographic Office as Chief Cartographer.

The Bounty Map

Published by the British Admiralty in 1922, the Bounty Map of Ceylon and the adjacent coast of India was based on detailed sea surveys conducted much earlier by Peter Heywood, a veteran of the Bounty mutiny. Heywood, a Royal Navy officer, was on board HMS Bounty during the infamous mutiny of 28 April 1789. He was later captured, tried and condemned to death as a mutineer, but subsequently pardoned. In 1801, he was appointed in command of the 16-gun sloop Trincomale, which allowed him to carry out several detailed surveys. He was explicitly ordered in 1802 to survey the east coast of Ceylon and, in particular, Point Pedro Shoal off the north-east part of the island.

The Gokanna Sea Chart

Bellin’s map of the Bay of Trincomalee, known at the time as Gokanna or Gokarna, was published at the height of the English-French Seven Years' War in India. The year of its publication – 1757 - coincided with France’s catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Plassey, where Robert Clive's British East India Company defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies, and power shifted towards Britain once and for all. Bellin was appointed chief cartographer to the French Navy, which was at the time busy trying to establish greater control over the oceans around South India and Ceylon, to which this map was intended to contribute. Jacques-Nicolas Bellin is also remembered as one of the Encyclopédistes, a group whose members were the great minds of the Age of Enlightenment, including Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Baron d'Holbach.

Hondius’s Map of Ceylon

Jodocus Hondius, a Dutch cartographer and engraver, was one of the premier publishers of maps and globes. When, in 1577-80, Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe, Hondius did much to publicise the voyage on his world maps. Hondius played a significant role in restoring Gerard Mercator to his rightful place as a cartographic pioneer. Hondiuis republished Mercator's Atlas in 1606, with important additions of his own, and the revived Mercator/Hondius atlas and its subsequent reissues came to dominate 17th-century cartography until mid-century. His map of Ceylon shows the island oriented with East at the top, and is embellished with three cartouches, native animals, and trading ships along the coastlines. The distinctive five-sided shape was based on early Portuguese surveys and quickly replaced by far more accurate Dutch portrayals.

Keulen’s Sea Chart of Ceylon

Johannes van Keulen was a Dutch maritime publisher whose atlases were published from 1678 onwards - an advantageous time to enter his profession. The van Keulen cartographic dynasty continued for nearly two centuries. His son, Gerard (1678–1726), produced new editions of his father’s works and made numerous manuscript charts. He was appointed hydrographer to the Dutch East India Company (VOC) in 1706. His grandson, Jan II van Keulen (1704–1770), took over the business in 1726 and published a new edition of the Asian volume of the Zee-Atlas. He was appointed chartmaker to the VOC in 1743, setting an official seal on a well-established relationship that would last until the company's dissolution in 1799. His 1684 sea chart of Sri Lanka is one of the earliest and most detailed of its kind, decorated with two large cartouches, rhumb lines, compass roses, and several sailing ships. The pink area in the southwest of the island is where cinnamon, an extremely valuable commodity at the time, could be grown and harvested.

Awnsham's Map of Mannar Island

Published by Awnsham & John Churchill, around 1740, this is one of the very earliest maps of

the island of Mannar and beautifully depicts the early European settlements that were established there.

The Paumbum Passage

In 1834, barely a few decades after the Kandyan Convention brought to an end the last independent kingdom on the island, the Royal Geographical Society commissioned a remarkably detailed sea chart of the Palk Strait, known then as the Paumbum Passage, which depicted in fine measure the shallow sea between India and Sri Lanka - "Adam's Bridge".

Pieces Of Land, A Half Hour Hence From Hangwelle - B

A map by the Dutch cartographer CP Boomgaard and inscribed “map of a piece of country called Cattoegalawille by the Inlanders, lying in the Hewegam Corla, in the village of Degambedde, about half an hour's gate from the fortress of Hangwell.” Hanwella was the largest of a string of Dutch forts along the River Kelani, built to tighten control over the interior. It included a house for the fiscal and warehouses for provisions and herbs. According to sources, the fort was manned by the Company's outcasts, who were not particularly welcome in Colombo.

The Tallis Map

John Tallis and his son, John Tallis, were influential English map publishers of the 19th century whose illustrated Atlases were published for the 1851 Great Exhibition, and were the last of the great decorative atlases, presenting the island of Ceylon to English eyes in its most romantic clothes.

The Matale Rebellion Sketch

In 1848, the Quartermaster General's office in Colombo commissioned John Arrowsmith, the English cartographer, to produce a survey map that emphasised the region around Kandy and the military activities during the Matale Rebellion on the island. The map states it accompanied the parliamentary dispatch of Lord Torrington, the controversial governor of Ceylon during this period.