Beyond Bawa

Beyond Bawa
Author: David Robson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2007
Genre: Architects
ISBN:

Takes a look at Geoffrey Bawa's life and career and at the legacy of his influence through the work of contemporary architects working across southeast Asia.

Beyond Bawa

Beyond Bawa
Author: David Robson
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2014-12-09
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 050029156X

One of the most influential names in Sri Lankan architecture,Geoffrey Bawa is represented here through images of his houses,hotels, public buildings, and the famous complex at Lunuganga Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa was among the most influential figures in South Asia in the latter half of the twentieth century. In houses, hotels, public buildings, and perhaps his greatest achievement, his residential complex in Lunuganga, Bawa achieved the harmonious and pleasurable fusion of local building traditions with modern forms. His legacy lives on in current architectural practice and remains an important source of inspiration for generations of architects. Bawa was the principal force behind what is today known globally as “tropical modernism,” and examples of his ideas can be found in Sri Lanka, Singapore, and Bali, and in resorts and residences throughout wider Asia.The book first presents a useful overview of Bawa and his contribution to contemporary architecture. The main section highlights the achievements of twenty-four contemporary architects, ranging from well-known practitioners such as Australian Kerry Hill to local talents such as Sri Lankan Anjalendran. The works they have created over the past ten years reveal the long-lasting significance of Bawa’s approach to building and the landscape.

Region

Region
Author: Simon Richards
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2023-07-28
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1000908356

This book explores how the concept of ‘region’ has evolved over time and shaped architectural culture and practice. It questions what the words ‘region’ and ‘regional’ mean for architecture, cities and landscapes past and present, and speculates on the forms they might take in the future. Region is explored in many thematic guises: as a real geographical site of evolving socio-economic activity; as a mythical locus of enduring value; as a gatekeeper of indigenous crafts and vernacular techniques; as a site of architectural and artistic imagination; as a repository of contested, conflicted and mobile identities. The contributing chapters take these themes from the theoretical and literary page through to architectural and urban practice, and from the scale of the domestic hearth through to the ocean archipelago and international law, enriching the long-standing trope of viewing architectural regionalism purely as a matter of style. Curated into four key thematic areas – Theorised Regions, Contested Regions, Heritage Regions and Future Regions – the book incorporates the values, concerns and approaches of a truly diverse international community of scholars, curators and practitioners, as well as the design work of international students tasked to explore what region means to them.

Bawa and Beyond

Bawa and Beyond
Author: Tariq Jazeel
Publisher:
Total Pages: 44
Release: 2006
Genre: Architecture
ISBN:

Address by the speaker at International Centre for Ethnic Studies.

Architecture and Nationalism in Sri Lanka

Architecture and Nationalism in Sri Lanka
Author: Anoma Pieris
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2013
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 0415630029

The role of the home, the domestic sphere and the intimate, ethno-cultural identities that are cultivated within it, are critical to understanding the polemical constructions of country and city; tradition and modernity; and regionalism and cosmopolitanism. The home is fundamental to ideas of the homeland that give nationalism its imaginative form and its political trajectory. This book explores positions that are vital to ideas of national belonging through the history of colonial, bourgeois self-fashioning and post colonial identity construction in Sri Lanka. The country remains central to related architectural discourses due to its emergence as a critical site for regional architecture, post-independence. Suggesting patterns of indigenous accommodation and resistance that are expressed through built form, the book argues that the nation grows as an extension of an indigenous private sphere, ostensibly uncontaminated by colonial influences, domesticating institutions and appropriating rural geographies in the pursuit of its hegemonic ideals. This ambitious, comprehensive, wide-ranging book presents an abundance of new and original material and many imaginative insights into the history of architecture and nationalism from the mid nineteenth century to the present day.

A Mystical Journey

A Mystical Journey
Author: M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen
Publisher: The Fellowship Press
Total Pages: 134
Release: 1990
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780914390299

Bawa: The Sri Lanka Gardens

Bawa: The Sri Lanka Gardens
Author: David Robson
Publisher: National Geographic Books
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2017-06-06
Genre: Gardening
ISBN: 0500292922

The story of two talented landscape designer brothers and their exquisite gardens set in the lush landscape of Sri Lanka The work of architect Geoffrey Bawa achieved a unique fusion of vernacular style and modern construction incorporating the lush tropical landscape of his native Sri Lanka. Although his architectural work and its influence have been well documented, less attention has been paid to his work on gardens. His most famous garden is the one he created for himself at his estate, Lunuganga, and it is rivaled by Brief, the lesser-known garden of his brother, Bevis. Evolving over several decades, these two gardens and their outbuildings and sculptures represent high points of tropical design, in which architecture and landscape are intertwined. Bawa: The Sri Lanka Gardens is the story of two brothers and their exquisite gardens. It begins with an overview of Sri Lanka’s rich horticultural tradition and the cultural background that inspired the Bawas’ sensitive treatment of architecture, and then records the familial relationship between Geoffrey and Bevis Bawa, and their distinctive individual differences and inspirations. David Robson takes the reader on a tour around Brief and Lunuganga through rich photo essays and revealing descriptions, while glorious images reveal the aesthetic considerations and architectural mastery of the gardens’ creators.

Sacred Modernity

Sacred Modernity
Author: Tariq Jazeel
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2013
Genre: History
ISBN: 1846318866

Sacred Modernity tours the natural places of Sri Lanka in order to examine the relationship between nature and religion that some Sinhalese Buddhists have developed there. Working through case studies of Sri Lanka's most prominent national park, Ruhuna, and its post-1950s modernist architecture—known as tropical modernism—Tariq Jazeel reveals the ways Sinhalese Buddhists have interwoven their negotiation of nature with their continued production of a post-colonial identity. He shows how this production minoritizes Tamil, Muslim, and Christian non-Sinhala in the nation's natural, environmental, and historical order. A sophisticated study of the complexities that lie between nature and culture, Sacred Modernity also demonstrates a social science that works beyond Eurocentric conceptions, offering new contexts for postcolonial theory, cultural studies, and geography.

Anjalendran

Anjalendran
Author: David Robson
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2014-01-21
Genre: Photography
ISBN: 1462905803

This beautifully illustrated book showcases the works of one of Sri Landa's most influential architects--Anjaledran, an ethnic Tamil and visionary artist. During the past 25 years of civil war in Sri Lanka, Anjalendran has stayed on, creating architecture that has attracted interest across the entire Indian subcontinent. In Anjalendran, David Robson explores this unique man and his uncommon vision. Anjalendran's buildings have a simple directness, and although totally modern in spirit, they acknowledge the rich design traditions of Sri Lanka. Whether working with ample budgets or at rock bottom cost (like his SOS Children's Village orphanages), his work focuses not only on creative buildings, but--a la Frank Lloyd Wright--also their landscaping, furniture and decoration. Just as interesting as the architecture is the process by which Anjalendran works—:from home, never employing more than four student assistants, with no office, no secretary, no car and no cell phone. He operates without a bank account and has never signed a contract with either a client or a builder. With stunning color photographs, plan details and behind-the-scenes insights, Anjalendran sheds light on the works of this exceptional man.

The Multi-Skilled Designer

The Multi-Skilled Designer
Author: Newton D'souza
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2019-11-21
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 1317309421

The Multi-Skilled Designer presents and analyzes different approaches to contemporary architectural design and interprets them through the theory of multiple intelligences. The book establishes a systematic framework that uses the lens of cognitive psychology and developments in psychometric and brain research to analyze the unique cognitive thought processes of architectural designers and compiles design projects that could serve as a pedagogical companion for the reader. The book is aimed at design practitioners and students interested in examining their own thinking styles as well as those involved in design cognition research.