Built Space, Environment, Modernism: (Re)reading ‘Tropical Modern’ Architecture

In a quiet spot on the banks of Lake Deduwa on Sri Lanka’s southwest coast, lies the sprawling estate of Lunuganga, the home and garden of the late Geoffrey Bawa, perhaps the best-known of Sri Lanka’s ‘tropical modern’ architects. Now owned and run as a boutique hotel by the Lunuganga Trust, this twenty-five-acre assortment of stunning landscapes and eclectic architectural experiments (Figures 5.1, 5.2, and 5.3) was Bawa’s country retreat from 1948 until his death in 2003. Set amidst a backdrop of unceasing tropical growth in this wettest and most fertile region of Sri Lanka, the estate straddles two hills