Our monthly film club highlights the relationship between film and architecture. The series continues with a screening of Soviet Bus Stops, which follows photographer Christopher Herwig as he documents the diverse architecture of bus stops across the former Republic.

Our monthly film club highlights the relationship between film and architecture. The series continues with a screening of Metropolis by director Fritz Lang, which follows two characters in an urban dystopia marked by wealth disparities and class friction.

Chief Curator Shayari de Silva will deliver a lecture titled “Drawing from the Geoffrey Bawa Archives.” De Silva will share observations from the Bawa Archives and question what constitutes archives in the context of Bawa’s work.

As part of the opening of Geoffrey Bawa: It is Essential to be There at Yale University, Chief Curator Shayari de Silva will lead a curatorial tour of the exhibition.

On Saturday, 24th August, we will be opening the De Saram House for viewing and tours alongside an interactive activity.

A moderated conversation between our Programme Manager Shanika Perera and visiting volunteer from Open House Basel, Nora Volk, will follow, exploring the similarities and differences between the two festivals. If you’ve ever wondered about the logistics of planning a city-wide festival, this is your chance to gain insight from two experts who run the show from their corners of the globe!

De Saram House will open at 10:00 a.m. Tours will be offered at 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. The talk will begin at 11:00 a.m.

Registration allows for access to one tour plus the talk.

De Saram House Google Maps Link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/gMMr1XZbBFUo8amo6
Parking is regretfully not available at the De Saram House. Visitors may park on Ward Place at their own discretion, but using other forms of transport is encouraged.

This event is in collaboration with Open House Basel and supported by Atelier Mondial.

How does pedagogy, research and practice influence an architect’s work? Architect and educator Anupama Kundoo will explore this question over an informal two-hour session for young architects and students on Saturday, 10th August at 11:30 a.m. at the De Saram House. 

As a Professor of architecture with teaching experience at Technische Universität Berlin, Yale University, and Columbia University, Anupama Kundoo’s research-oriented practice—with studios in Berlin, and Pondicherry—has developed people-centric architecture prioritising low environmental impact. Her solo show, Taking Time, was on view at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art between 2020–21. She is the recipient of multiple accolades including the RIBA Charles Jencks Award and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. Kundoo’s practice centres human resourcefulness including ingenuity, care, and sense of community.

To register, please fill out this Google Form: bit.ly/KundooQA. Please note this event has limited capacity; once filled, registrations will close. If you are unable to attend, please cancel your registration so someone on the waitlist can be given your seat.

"Rethinking Material Resources alongside Human Resourcefulness"

Our built environment is the physical stage on which all human stories are lived out. This physical stage is the historical and ongoing manifestation of human imagination operating within real (or, imaginary!) constraints. Anupama Kundoo advances the idea that architectural imagination must transcend design and enter the realms of materials science and economics where some of the bigger questions reside. She will discuss the thrust of her inquiries which have been to find practical ways to fulfill the universal human aspiration for refuge, purpose, and social engagement through extensive material research and experimentation. She will discuss 'Human Time as a Resource' in the quest for new materiality and critically examine the way the time value of money has nudged us towards code-based design and the industrialized production of building components and, sometimes, even entire buildings themselves. She will discuss materiality and consumption of finite natural resources alongside their impact on human wellbeing and human resourcefulness.

Anupama Kundoo

Anupama Kundoo graduated from the University of Mumbai in 1989 and received her PhD from Technische Universität Berlin in 2008. Her research-oriented practice, started in 1990 in Auroville, has generated people-centric architecture based on spatial and material research for low environmental impact while being socioeconomically beneficial. Her body of works was recently exhibited as a solo show, Taking Time, at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Denmark. She has taught Architecture and Urban Management at various international universities including Yale and Columbia, strengthening her expertise in rapid urbanization and climate change-related development issues. She is currently Professor at Technische Universität Berlin, Germany and the Norman Foster Visiting Professor of Architecture at Yale University. She received the RIBA Charles Jencks Award for her contribution to architectural theory, the 2021 Auguste Perret Prize for architectural technology, the 2021 Building Sense Now Global Award of the German Sustainable Building Council DGNB, and the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture under UNESCO patronage in 2022. Her studios are based in Berlin, Germany, and Pondicherry, India. Kundoo’s rigorous research and experimentation in new materiality for architecture is the result of questioning basic assumptions and construction habits that humanity has adopted during the long process of industrialization. Rather than focussing on shortage, she sought abundance through investing in human resources and human resourcefulness, such as ingenuity, time, skills, care and sense of community.

Join the Youth Advisory Board for a Lunuganga-themed scavenger hunt!

Our inaugural Youth Advisory Board (YAB) consists of six members in their teens to twenties who advise the Trust while devising ways to engage a wider network of young people. Join the YAB for a Lunuganga-themed scavenger hunt, which will be available to complete throughout the weekend before convening to share your finds.

Location: Field of Jars

Spend an afternoon picnicking at Cinnamon Hill with handheld snacks prepared by Colombo restaurant GINI. (5,000 LKR/person)

GINI Outdoor Kitchen will cater a picnic in the garden for guests to enjoy before heading home from the weekend’s festivities. The restaurant will offer an assortment of snacks off the grill to be enjoyed in a casual picnic setting.

This event is ticketed at 5,000 LKR/person. Payment may be made via bank transfer within 36 hours of registering.

Location: Cinnamon Hill

Take a (de)tour of Lunuganga by GBT Sr. Design and Communications Manager Thilini Perera and artist Chathura Nissansala.

The Order of Nature is a curatorial project exploring Lunuganga on the intersections of queerness, architecture, and landscape design. This detour explores the garden as a site for otherness, investigating how Lunuganga subverts established paradigms of garden design by its representational and ecological components. The Trust’s Senior Design and Communications Manager Thilini Perera and artist Chathuri Nissansala—who hope to question conceptions of what defines "normal" and "natural"—will lead the tour.

Join artist Firi Rahman for a tour of his Lunuganga installation.

Firi Rahman is a multidisciplinary artist whose work considers the relationships between people and nature. His two-part installation, In between: the Existence of Firdaus and Perch, addresses these connections through a series of drawings and an outdoor structure—a first for the artist. Rahman will offer a tour of his installation to allow visitors insight into his creative process and the experience of working within and alongside the garden.

Location: Field of Jars

Launch of 'Saudade: Encountering the Haunting Presence of Prince Dorovana' by artist Chathuri Nissansala

Inspired by Lunuganga as a fantastical landscape where queerness ekes out a claim, contemporary Colombo-based artist Chathuri Nissansala’s new installation investigates this presence as a sort of nostalgia-inducing spectre.

Enjoy a Lunuganga-inspired meal by Colombo restaurant GINI under the stars on the Red Terrace. (30,000 LKR/person).

GINI Outdoor Kitchen merges the traditional practice of live-fire outdoor cooking with contemporary takes on locally-sourced ingredients and spices. As a fundraiser to continue the work of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust to make art and architecture accessible to the public, this event will be ticketed and priced at 30,000 LKR per person for a unique culinary experience. GINI at Lunuganga will combine the shared philosophies of the restaurant and garden by serving a multi-course plated dinner—prepared in the restaurant’s signature style of cooking over an open flame—to an intimate crowd on the Red Terrace.

This event is ticketed. Payment may be made via bank transfer within 36 hours of registering.

Location: Red Terrace

Enjoy handcrafted cocktails from Colombo restaurant GINI on the Front Terrace at sunset.

Known for its open-flame cooking, GINI Outdoor Kitchen has also developed a reputation for producing craft cocktails using unique local ingredients. Guests are invited to sample specially-made drinks conceived with the history and flora of Lunuganga in mind as the sun sets over Dedduwa Lake.

Location: Front Terrace

Acclaimed musician Ravibandu Vidyapathi will perform his original soundtrack to 'Salt River' on the Front Terrace.

Salt River is a Lunuganga-focused film based in part on an idea from Channa Daswatte. Twenty years after its release, musician and dance artist Ravibandu Vidyapathi will re-conceptualise his soundtrack to the 2004 film through an originally-composed live performance featuring a sweeping orchestral ensemble.

Location: Front Terrace

Join artist Firi Rahman for a tour of his Lunuganga installation.

Firi Rahman is a multidisciplinary artist whose work considers the relationships between people and nature. His two-part installation, In between: the Existence of Firdaus and Perch, addresses these connections through a series of drawings and an outdoor structure—a first for the artist. Rahman will offer a tour of his installation to allow visitors insight into his creative process and the experience of working within and alongside the garden.

Location: Field of Jars

Join us for the launch of a new installation around Ena de Silva's work, located in her home on Lunuganga's grounds.

The Geoffrey Bawa Trust and Ena de Silva Foundation are close collaborators, born out of the friendship between Bawa and Ena de Silva. Placed within the house designed by Geoffrey Bawa for Ena de Silva, this installation is the culmination of unravelling Ena's deeply empathetic and keen observations of the natural world and its influence on not only her textile practice, but those around her. This installation will also showcase Ena’s son and “drawing hands” Anil Gamini Jayasuriya for his imperative contributions to the practice.

Location: No. 05 (Ena de Silva House) at Lunuganga

Join us at the Kannangara House for an opening reception and launch of the new 'Tree Talks' audio installation.

Join us at the Aelian Kannangara house—the new home of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust team—for a reception to inaugurate the space and kick off the To Lunuganga Season 3 launch weekend.

Channa Daswatte, Chairperson of the Geoffrey Bawa Trust, will welcome guests to the Kannangara House, designed by Geoffrey Bawa (1959-61). Chief Curator Shayari de Silva will reflect on the To Lunuganga programme and introduce its third season. Light refreshments will be served. 

Tree Talks is a podcast series designed to unearth new narratives rooted in the flora of Lunuganga. The first season has explored themes such as rituals, healing, and habitats. Guests have included naturalist Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, fashion designer Sanjeewa Wijesundara, Intangible Cultural Heritage expert Dr. Danister Perera, and architect Aquila Peris. Curator Aneesha Mustachi will briefly introduce the project and the listening room, intended as a space to experience all five episodes released to-date alongside an installation, on view until Sunday, 14 July.

Location: Kannangara House, 41/2 Horton Place Colombo 07

Parking is not available at the Kannangara House. You may park at your own discretion on Horton Place, but using alternative forms of transport is highly encouraged.

Mirror by filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky is a drama that traces the life of a dying poet and the evolution of Soviet culture between the 1960s and 1970s. Semi-autobiographical in nature, the film features poems by Tarkovsky’s father as well as his wife and mother. Mirror takes on a nonlinear narrative structure that incorporates childhood memories, dreams, and newsreel footage to piece together a comprehensive, yet fractured, account of the poet’s story.

Animator, illustrator, comic artist, and storyteller Shenuka Corea will lead a counter-mapping workshop focused on hidden histories to mark the launch of her corresponding zine. This activity seeks to frame the garden from new perspectives and consider mapping as a practice of documentation to uncover what lies beneath the view of the naked eye or beyond a first glance. 

Participants will work together to create a collaborative counter-map of the garden based on their observations, photographs, and drawings. 

The zine and workshop are part of The Order of Nature, a curatorial project exploring the intersection of queerness, architecture, and landscape design within Lunuganga.

LKR 3,000 (includes transport to & from Bentota, lunch, and tea).
Scholarships available, please write to us at: programmes@gbtrust.net

“Let's Create an (Inclusive) Treasure Map!”

Let’s Build Great Things! will host a two-part children’s workshop focusing on skills including pattern identification, wayfinding, communication, and inclusivity. A tessellation activity will kick off the day, which will culminate in a special treasure hunt designed by participants.

Let’s Build Great Things! is an educational platform designed to develop and nurture autonomy in young children through interactive arts-based lessons rooted in architectural and design pedagogy. Exercises cultivate critical thinking and an interest in social engagement. The forthcoming Let’s Build Great Things! activity book, which fosters skill-building and whose contents are the basis for this programme, will be released soon in collaboration with the Geoffrey Bawa Trust.

LKR 3,000
For ages 6-13 years
For more information and registration, please email programmes@gbtrust.net

In Plain Sight by filmmaker and photographer Ruvin de Silva is an exposé of Sri Lanka’s strategic disappearances and mass graves. Featuring seven different locations, several of which are in population-dense areas now undergoing development, the film examines urbanisation’s ruthless encroachment on and attempts to altogether erase collective memory. Through oral histories of affected families, activists, and researchers, the film explores the history that led to the endemic problem of unmarked, unprotected graves within local communities and interrogates its influence on the country’s future. 

State in Silence addresses the foundational issues which laid the groundwork for those raised in In Plain Sight including institutionalised violence, justice systems, and the nation-state. Fashioned as a follow-up to In Plain Sight, State in Silence uses a similar methodology of firsthand accounts through interviews to gain perspective on accountability and human rights in the country. Together, the pair presents a rounded view of Sri Lanka’s symbiotic relationship between state-sanctioned terror and the culture of impunity that bolsters it.

Curator, researcher, and director of the Alserkal Arts Foundation Nada Raza will give a talk on the foundation’s research-led residencies, grants, and public programme before charting her exhibition making work to bridge South and West Asia through artistic research and curation. Raza began curating in Dubai in 2005 and has since brought South Asian art into the collections of Green Cardamom, Iniva, and Tate before returning to the UAE to set up the Ishara Art Foundation.

The Geoffrey Bawa Trust has collaborated with Let’s Build Great Things! to create a children’s workshop featuring an arts and architecture-centred activity. This event is part of a larger school holiday programme at the Bawa-designed Ladies’ College Institute of Professional Studies.

For more information and to register, call/email: 0 (11) 257 4194 / info@lcips.lk.

Film and architecture are interwoven art forms, united by their shared articulation of lived space and temporality. The Geoffrey Bawa Trust’s new curated film series, “Sculpted Time: An Architecture-Focused Film Series” emphasizes architecture and built environments as dimensional characters in their own right rather than mere onscreen backdrops. Selected films will span countries and genres, using narrative and montage to unveil multiple layers of meaning inherent in spatial structure.

Join us for the third installment of this series, a screening of Being Here: Stories of Home by writer, editor, and filmmaker Sharni Jayawardena. Jayawardena's documentary tracks four working-class women in Colombo, Sri Lanka whose daily lives are marked by adversity and compounded by the city’s push for “world-class” designation. The ethnographic film explores topics including socioeconomic status, gender, and ethnicity against a backdrop of violence, hierarchy, and oppression.

Following the screening, light refreshments will be served along with time to mingle and discuss your thoughts on the film!

Free admission and free seating.

The Geoffrey Bawa Trust’s new film club, “Sculpted Time: An Architecture-Focused Film Series,” highlights the relationship between film and architecture. Selected films will emphasise built environments as dimensional characters within the narrative, rather than mere onscreen backdrops. The series continues with a screening of Nostalgia for the Future by Avijit Mukul Kishore and Rohan Shivkumar on 28th February.

Nostalgia for the Future explores the making of Indian modernity through four distinct buildings erected over the course of a century. Filmmaker Avijit Mukul Kishore and architect Rohan Shivkumar collaborated on the project, which won Best Long Documentary at the 2017 International Documentary and Short Film Festival in Kerala and received the Jury’s Special Mention at the 2017 Signs Film Festival in Kochi.

This event is free and open to the public.  Following the screening, light refreshments will be served along with time to mingle and discuss your thoughts on the film.

In his first site-specific, outdoor installation, Colombo-based artist Firi Rahman drew from the juxtaposition between an urban upbringing and intimate relationship with nature. The resulting work is one that investigates humanity’s relationship to and coexistence with the natural world.

‘In between: the Existence of Firdaus’ has been on view at Lunuganga for the last two months. The two-part piece—featuring both an indoor and outdoor element—engages with the garden and Geoffrey Bawa’s closely-held philosophies around bridging interior and exterior while keeping the relationship between art and ecology at the foreground of his work. Working in tandem with the themes brought forth by the Geoffrey Bawa Trust’s year-long ‘To Lunuganga’ programme, Rahman’s installation is evocative of the artist’s core memories and understanding of the natural world as it adapts to today’s ever-changing landscapes.

On Saturday, 10th February, Rahman will officially launch his installation through a guided afternoon in the garden. In keeping with the personal and reflective conditions which informed the project, the event will allow visitors to glean insight into Rahman’s artistic process through interactive activities and participatory discussion.

The afternoon will begin with an artist-led sketch walk through the garden, ending at the Sandella which currently displays Rahman’s indoor installation, ‘In between: the Existence of Firdaus.’ Participants are required to bring their own sketching materials. Following the walk, Geoffrey Bawa Trust’s Assistant Curator, Aneesha Mustachi will moderate a conversation with the artist at the Field of Jars—the site of the outdoor element of his installation, ‘Perch.’ Refreshments will be served at sunset on the North Terrace. 

‘In between: the Existence of Firdaus’ is open to the public as part of the ‘To Lunuganga’ programme celebrating 75 years of art, architecture, and ecology at Lunuganga. 

Transport
Shuttles will be provided from Colombo at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. The cost per shuttle is LKR 1,500 per person (round trip), to be paid to a GBT team member en route. Shuttles will depart from Lunuganga back to Colombo at 7:00 p.m. Please note that shuttle space is limited and available on a first-registered, first-served basis.

Schedule
2:00–4:00 p.m. | Firdaus in process: Sketch-walk with Firi Rahman (Participants to bring their own sketchbooks and pens/pencils)
4:30–5:30 p.m. | Artist talk + tour at Field of Jars
6:00–7:00 p.m. | Sunset refreshments