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Award Winning Architect
Geoffrey Bawa
The Heritance Kandalama hotel was built by Sri Lanka’s greatest architect, Geoffrey Bawa. He began his career as an architect at the late age of 37. However in a career that continued for nearly 40 years, he came to be regarded as the most prolific and respected architect Sri Lanka has ever produced.
Bawa was a genius at blending buildings with their natural environment, interconnecting outside spaces with the inside.
At Heritance Kandalama he created an austere building, which derives its beauty from the surrounding landscape. The simple geometry and lack of decoration of the building, helps to highlight the natural environment. When he first built the hotel, he told hotel staff that one day it would peer out from under a canopy of lush vegetation. The staff didn’t fully grasp what he was describing. Ten years later, after Geoffrey Bawa was long gone, the staff say he had described the hotel exactly as it is today. The Heritance Kandalama is the living embodiment of Geoffrey Bawa’s architectural vision.
Bawa’s buildings are not just bricks and mortar, but the expression of intangible emotions, and the unique experience of living within his vision.
His best known works are “Lunuganga”, his own garden in Bentota that he designed over a 40-year period, the Parliament of Sri Lanka, the Madurai Club in India, Heritance Ahungalle, and Heritance Kandalama.
