Unseen glimpses of Bawa’s Lunuganga

Uncover the secrets of Geoffrey Bawa's mythical residence in Sri Lanka

06 Aug 2024

“The Lunuganga Estate is one of the best-known Asian gardens of the 20th Century. Its influence and status in the world of landscaping are not matched by its older antecedents and very few gardens have captured the imagination of travellers to Sri Lanka as this has. For many years it remained a mythical place as Bawa disallowed anyone other than his closest friends into its charmed boundaries. The very private person that Bawa was, the very personal style of the interiors of the house were rarely revealed, much less written about.” – Channa Daswatte

To capture a spirit akin to something that one had experienced in the past and to hold it in physical form is not an easy task. But when Geoffrey Bawa, in January 1948, bought the property that was to become his beloved Lunuganga in Sri Lanka, that was exactly what he embarked to do. He once said that he did not set out to recreate an English or European garden or house but to capture the spirit of it for himself. With this in mind, he aimed to remove much of the young rubber trees in the plantation that he had bought and begin to make the initial moves in what was to become the now 75-year-old garden.

The architect C. Anjalendran’s view that Geoffrey Bawa was a gardener first and an architect later is clear in this picture where the language of gardens such as vistas and views are perfectly displayed by its masterful application through several buildings and open spaces visually connecting them; Photography by Banuka Vithanage

The main purpose of the Sandella was to have a space to work and to that end the single piece pare mara or raintree wood takes centre stage. The Indo Portuguese saint on the table could be any one of the vast array of saintly people worshipped during the time. Above the satinwood verandah chair on the left side of the table is a small Ivan Pieris painting from the 1960s; Photography by Banuka Vithanage

Having started work on the outside, he also began imagining how he would live within. In the beginning Lunuganga in Sri Lanka was no more than a two-bedroomed estate bungalow, of a particular practical type. Arrival was at a car porch, with the assumption that a plantation owner in the 1930s must have a car. It led into a verandah leading up to a large long sitting and dining room with an arch between them, with service areas at the back.

A corridor led off to one side of this room between the living and dining space to two ensuite bedrooms with their own verandahs placed on either side. The house itself was generous in size as many plantation bungalows at the time were inclined to be, with high ceilings. It appears that having experienced the formality of life within English country houses, particularly at Terling Place, the home of his friend, Guy Strutt, who he would visit from time to time when he was a student at Cambridge, he set about transforming the estate bungalow into a more formal plan, particularly in the arrival and sequence of experiencing the spaces.

An antique Kandyan Pekada or column head is grafted onto a colonial style column to hold up part of the toilet roof in the Gate House suite. The lamp on the counter is a design by Bawa; Photography by Banuka Vithanage

The most significant change was to the main entrance. Having redirected the approach road to the east of the property, the original entrance to the house from the west was moved to the end of the bedroom corridor, looking south and entered a formal hall carved out of the original verandah on that side.

Symmetrical in all aspects, two black and white doors face each other and lead into the two bedrooms on either side, the master on the south.

A reproduction bronze sculpture of Dionysius, after an antique original (which was discovered in 1862 in Pompeii, now in the Museo Nazionale, Naples) sits on the painted brick ledge of the bathtub in Bawa’s bathroom. The wall is painted with samara, a traditional yellow earth pigment behind the sculpture; Photography by Banuka Vithanage

A headless terracotta figure stands atop a pedestal over the bathtub in the principal bathroom of the Cinnamon Hill House as bright sunshine and the lush outdoors find their way indoors through mesh lined steel doors; Photography by Banuka Vithanage

This space with its black and white floor is reminiscent of many formal English country house hallways. The corridor opposite the main door looks straight through the house into the lake beyond, giving a suggestion of what lies ahead as it leads off into the main living space. The original sitting and dining room, now surrounded by the original verandahs and an even larger verandah to the west where the original carport was, has been converted to a casual sitting area. An extension to it acts as a semi outdoor dining room. All this looks out over a magnificent view of the lake.

Over the years other spaces were added to the garden — starting with the gatehouse close to the entrance in the garden followed by the Glass Room over the car-parking space and the Sandella Garden Room. The Sandella is possibly the most carefully thought out interior in the house as it is entirely made from recycled wood parts from an 18th Century CE shop house, demolished in road widening projects for Galle Road. These parts are carefully shuffled for various uses other than the original. Window panels become railings for upper levels and panelled windows now devoid of these are glazed in.

The centrepiece of the verandah lounge of the Cinnamon Hill House has a cement table with a cycas leaf impression, made for the Bentota beach hotel and rescued by Bawa when they were being discarded. The wrought iron candelabra is from a local ironmonger made to a design by Shanth Fernando of Paradise Road. The mesh chairs are designed by Rico Tarawella; Photography by Banuka Vithanage

A mediaeval sculpture of a boy bishop bought at a Paris antique store, stands with hand raised in blessing in the corridor leading from the black and white floored entrance hall to the main reception rooms; Photography by Banuka Vithanage

Later, an old cowshed was converted into an art gallery, which was in turn converted into the Gallery Suite by the Trust. The last three buildings along with a small hen coop in their midst, arranged around the red terrace is reminiscent of a barn and animal houses in a European farm, though they were never actually used that way.

The last major construction on the site was the Cinnamon Hill House in the mid-1990s. It was intended as a two-bedroom weekend cottage, a sort of dowager quarters for friends who might rent it long term, so he would have company on the weekends!

A 19th Century CE sculpture peers over the frangipani tree made by planting two branches in the same location. It enabled them to spread, imparting a perfectly beautiful shape to the 75 year old; Photography by Banuka Vithanage

Initially, the house accommodated the objects and furniture that Bawa inherited from his parental home, Chapman House in Colombo. And some from that which he used as a student at Cambridge — the Art Deco table that is the centrepiece of the dining space, the early 19th Century Georgian chandelier and gilded mirror candle sconces that still hang in the entrance hall. Early photos in the Lunuganga guest book show Dutch-period colonial four-poster beds such as the one still in the Glass Room over the entrance porch.

Other artefacts include those he brought with him from Europe such as the mediaeval bishop set on a stone plinth at the entrance corridor or gifted by friends, the fin-de-Siècle gilt bronze and crystal chandelier hanging in the living room being one of them and gifted to him by his cousin Georgette Camille, who also encouraged him to become an architect.

Amongst the earlier outdoor furniture were modern classics such as Ernest Race’s Antelope Chair on the verandahs and the classic Indian colonial Roorkee Chair along with canvas covered director’s chairs used for dining and sitting in the garden accompanied by small wood and steel-legged tables of his own design for keeping drinks on.

Over the years though, Bawa’s taste changed to one where furniture, particularly the large pieces such as beds were built in brick and plaster, and painted in white, contrasting with the dark polished cement floors of the old house in Lunuganga Estate, Sri Lanka.

By the 1970s, much of the fuss of a multitude of pieces of furniture had disappeared and only the most exquisite pieces remain with a clearly architectural backdrop of built-in white painted platforms, niches and worktables.

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