To Lunuganga – architecture as autobiography

When I first heard the name Lunuganga, I thought it was the title of a children’s poem. It has an inherent poesy, almost song like. Later, when I visited the site in Bentota, about two hours by road from Colombo, I was informed that “Lunuganga” is Sinhala for “salt river”. Located on the banks of the Dedduwa lake, Lunuganga, the country estate of the renowned Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa, turned 75 last year. Many who follow his work know that he nurtured it over 50 years until his death in 2003. He also chose its name. The Geoffrey Bawa Trust, set up in 1982, looks after the property and organises events that encourage the public to engage with the space. Bawa’s work creates conversations around ecology and art, which were both pivotal to his life and practice. In one such attempt last year, the gates of Lunuganga were thrown open to anyone who wanted to visit and more than 5,000 people from the local village turned up to see the famed gardens that the gates had concealed from them.

During my visit, I saw site-specific installations by Indian artist Reena Saini Kallat and Firi Rahman, a young artist who lives in Colombo. Kallat’s work, made with locally available stones, engages with the idea of borders, both social and political. Firi Rahman’s drawings of birds and plants are installed in a room with many windows that served as Bawa’s office. Lunuganga has numerous trees. Bawa designed the indoor spaces in such a way that it encourages you to look from the inside to the outside almost reaffirming that these barriers are futile and manmade. The barriers, if any, only reside in the imagination. The greens demand attention with shades of the colour proliferating on the premises that are tended to by a network of staff. Lunuganga is Bawa’s work of art made in collaboration with the elements of nature. It is as if one conversed and understood the other and then worked closely to create a symphony. One staff member mentioned that Bawa often said that, when it became too difficult to maintain Lunuganga (the garden spreads over 19 acres), the space should be allowed to turn into a forest. Nature should reclaim what belongs to her. That would be another art project; this time without a curator.

Artists leave behind a body of work. We look for traces of them in their books, films, music, paintings. But could the same assumption be made about architects? Don’t they take on commissioned projects? And while doing so, they also have to accommodate the wishes and demands of clients. It is a symbiotic process. That’s precisely why Lunuganga ought to be seen differently. When Bawa bought this estate in 1948, it was a rubber plantation. He gradually converted the space into a tropical garden and a weekend home where he could relax, work, and meet friends.

Lunuganga turned into Bawa’s laboratory of sorts where he could experiment and try new ideas, even radical ones. Early traces of the Parliament Building that he designed in Colombo are to be found here and glimpses of the genesis of many other now iconic projects are evident. When architects depart, we try to find them in their buildings. In Bawa’s Lunuganga, we have a magnificent garden believed to be one of the best of the 20th century. Could this be Bawa asking us to think of the garden as architecture, his ongoing work of art? The project has a beginning but no definite end. This could be quite significant to understanding the mind of the artist. Bawa’s work always tried to bring the outside inside and blur those boundaries. This is also evident at his residence in Colombo (Home Number 11 – now a museum) where he would sit in a corner and watch the rain fall directly into his home and then drain away. Lunuganga then is akin to an ongoing exhibition, which offers unmediated access to the mind of the creator and what he held dear to his life and work.

Ecology is the new buzzword in art circles with terms like sustainability and ecological consciousness being relentlessly tossed around. When Bawa embarked on creating Lunuganga, none of these were fashionable or grant-worthy topics. Perhaps he did it as a way of life and did not care to make a statement. I am not even sure if he thought of Lunuganga necessarily as an artistic experiment.

He probably felt equally grateful for the numerous trees and the closeness to water that allowed him to think freely. Art objects collected from all over the world are on display across the premises. There are also paintings and murals by friends and eminent artists such as Laki Senanayake and Donald Friend. I am tempted to think of Lunuganga as being akin to an artist’s diary or sketchbook full of notes and doodles. The margins, as always, seem to hold critical information but eventually all details come together to create a cohesive whole. Lunuganga was a private haven to which the artist could retreat and create an exhibition for himself without an intended audience; where he could also afford to fail. Bawa perhaps thought of Lunuganga as a sanctuary for himself and the many birds, plants, trees, animals that continue to live and breathe in that space even today.

Kunal Ray writes about art and culture. He teaches literature and film at FLAME University, Pune.