Geoffrey Bawa: Architecture for the Senses

With a career spanning five decades and more than two hundred projects, Geoffrey Bawa (Sri Lankan, 1919–2003) was the most influential architect in post-independence Sri Lanka and one of the leading figures in South Asian architecture. His remarkable oeuvre includes hotels, private residences, schools, universities, factories, office buildings, and the Sri Lankan Parliament building. Motivated by a keen sensitivity to context and a direct response to the terrain, his work blends the principles of modernism with the island’s architectural history and challenges the boundaries between inside and outside. Bawa took pleasure in making buildings with a hands-on approach, working closely with craftspeople and local industries while harnessing knowledge from different eras, geographies, and cultures. Taking an expansive worldview, Bawa asserted that good architecture had to make sense—both emotionally and practically. Today, his architectural strategies are being rediscovered, inspiring socially and ecologically sustainable building practices across the world.

The exhibition is divided into four sections: architecture’s relationship to identity and political discourses, creative collaborations, social practices, and ecological elements. With a dynamic exhibition design by Lina Ghotmeh — Architecture, the exhibition includes drawings, models, furniture, historic footage, artworks, and photographs by Bawa. Newly commissioned photographs by Iwan Baan and video installations by Kavindu Sivaraj and Ruvin de Silva offer spatial experiences of Bawa’s buildings. Other highlights include a never-before-shown documentary featuring artworks by his collaborators and Bawa talking about his architectural practice.

The exhibition is organised by the Vitra Design Museum and M+ in collaboration with the Geoffrey Bawa Trust and the Wüstenrot Foundation.