Gardens of Bawa Brothers

[mikhurram]

The Brothers Bawa
by Caroline Seebohm

Two eccentric brothers create wonderfully idiosyncratic gardens an hour’s distance apart on an enchanted island off the tip of India. Sibling rivalry? Perhaps. The results: spectacular. I visited both gardens recently, unprepared not only for their beauty and originality but for the distinctive nature of the two men’s designs, each as revealing as diary entries. The brothers, brilliant in their own ways and as different from one another as their gardens, are gone. But here, in vernal splendor, the two documents of their lives bloom on.

The island is Sri Lanka, often described as a teardrop hanging off India’s southern coast. Slightly larger than West Virginia, the former Portuguese, Dutch, and British colony, lately torn by civil war, retains the staples of a colonial-era paradise—jungles, tea plantations, beaches, colorful cities, ancient ruins and rock formations, spices in the air, and hundreds of Buddhist shrines and temples. In this stunning tropical landscape, near the southern coastal town of Bentota, the brothers Geoffrey and Bevis Bawa carved out the two gardens that have become their legacies.

Sri Lanka’s is a diverse culture, home to Veddas, Tamils, Burghers, and Moors, known locally as Muslims. The Bawa family was connected to the wealthy, elite Burgher society, whose ancestry can be traced to 17th-century Europeans who settled in Ceylon (as the island was called before 1972). Geoffrey and Bevis’ father’s ancestry was British and Muslim; their mother was of European and Sinhalese stock. (Sri Lankan-born author Michael Ondaatje, who comes from a Burgher family, wrote vividly about this free-spirited, hedonistic world in his memoir, Running in the Family.)

Geoffrey (1919-2003) is far better known than his brother. After training in England to be a lawyer, he turned to architecture. He designed the island’s Parliament complex as well as many other public buildings but made his reputation with his hotels, like the mile-long Heritance Kandalama outside of Dambulla, which seems to grow out of the jungle, and the Jetwing Lighthouse in the coastal city of Galle. Geoffrey’s practice of combining native materials with international modernist style has become hugely influential around the world.

Geoffrey began his garden, called Lunuganga, in the late 1940s. Sited on a former rubber plantation, its main feature is a large lake at the bottom of a steep hill. The English landscape movement heavily influenced his plan. Wide swathes of lawn stretch toward the lake from the original house (now a hotel), dotted with Frisian cows (Geoffrey loved black and white everywhere and adored Dalmatian dogs), water gardens, and miniature rice paddies. A crenelated folly, prettily painted guest bungalows, and artfully placed statuary add to the English feel.

Geoffrey had no doubts about the relationship between a designer and his garden. His philosophy was dedicated to the notion of man’s domination over nature; he moved water, hills, and trees without hesitation. “The long view to the south ended with the temple,” Geoffrey wrote, “but in the middle distance was a ridge with a splendid ancient moonamal tree, and when I placed a large Chinese jar under it, the hand of man was established in this middle distance.” Yet Geoffrey’s genius was to create a landscape so naturalistic that it could hardly be identified as man-made. Ondaatje tells the story of a visitor to Lunuganga exclaiming, “But Mr. Bawa, wouldn’t this be a lovely place to turn into a garden?” Geoffrey said this was the best compliment he ever received.

Bevis Bawa (1909-1992) used his authority in a different way. Called the Brief Garden because his father purchased the land after a successful legal brief, Bevis’ garden is farther inland than his brother’s, and though it embraces the same tropical landscape, it reflects Bevis’ unruly temperament and casual approach to life.

[mikhurram]

Geoffrey Bawa Garden at Lanuganga

[mikhurram]

Geoffrey Bawa Garden at Lanuganga

[mikhurram]

3 views of the Plumeria trained under weights. The tree apparently was planted in 1947. Bawa used to hang weights on the branches for it to spread wide and trained peacocks and peahens to sit on the tree, to effectively make it look like a Chinese painting

[mikhurram]

The whole complex formerly an abandoned rubber estate is a 50 acres in extent inclusive of two small islands in the Dedduwa lagoon, which borders two sides of the property. This was planted in cinnamon in the eighteenth century and in the 1930s was replanted with rubber. Both islands are preserved in their natural state and are today bird sanctuaries. A little over fifteen acres round the house on the hilltop is artistically landscaped with dozens of levels of varying sizes; the lowest with two large ponds, a fresh water well, sun dial and a rain fed paddy field.

[chickoo34]

Simply Woow!

[Muhammad Arif Khan]

Splendid.

[newton]

Awesum,,, thank you so much for a wonderfully informative post.

One thing I cant understand is why he used to weights to bring the Plumeria branches down , what was the purpose of the exercise? was it so that the flowers would be at head height or was it that aesthetically it was more in the style of Japanese/Chinese gardening. I am intrigued now.

[mikhurram]

In my opinion the weights were used to encourage the branches to spread further in horizontal manner.The giant plumeria which we percieve to be a single tree shown in the pictures actually consists of two plumerias whose trunks were twisted.