Lunuganga Garden

The story of Lunuganga begins in 1948 when a young Geoffrey Bawa, fresh from studying law at Cambridge, purchased a modest 10-acre rubber estate on the banks of Dedduwa Lake. What started as a weekend retreat would become a lifetime obsession and the birthplace of a revolutionary architectural movement that would influence design across the tropical world.

Bawa had no formal training in architecture when he began transforming the estate, but he possessed something more valuable - an intuitive understanding of how spaces should feel and how buildings should respond to their environment. Working with skilled local craftsmen and gardeners, he began creating a series of interconnected spaces that seemed to grow naturally from the landscape itself.

Over the next five decades, Bawa continuously refined and expanded Lunuganga, treating it as both his home and his experimental laboratory. Every element - from the placement of a single tree to the orientation of a pavilion - was carefully considered to create what he called 'a series of experiences' that would unfold as visitors moved through the space.

The genius of Lunuganga lies not in any single dramatic gesture, but in the accumulation of countless subtle decisions that create an overall sense of harmony and discovery. Bawa believed that good design should feel effortless and natural, even when it required enormous thought and skill to achieve such apparent simplicity.