Sri Lanka, emerging as an upscale travel destination, has many of the usual drawing cards you’d expect—beaches, culture, cuisine—and as a bonus, you can add unique architecture to the list. Tropical modernism, heralded by the late Geoffrey Bawa , is an intriguing local evolution of international style, adapted to the hot and humid local climate and referencing various cultural elements. His style is exemplified in his family’s Lunuganga estate—but that’s not the only testament to the country’s unique modern and contemporary architecture. Here are a few architectural pilgrimage sites to visit in Sri Lanka.
Among the latest of Geoffrey Bawa’s designs to be realized is Anantara Kalutara , whose construction was halted in the 1990s due to civil war and again in 2004 due to a tsunami. At last finished in late 2016 under the guidance of Bawa’s protégé Channa Daswatte, the 141-room property features a soaring main building with open airways that maximize the sea breeze.
The lobby’s showstopping upper deck features oversize batik and views of the mangrove-lined estuary that runs by the luxury property.
A series of walkways connect the main hub with various buildings that nod to Sri Lanka’s heritages, from traditional motifs to the Dutch colonial villas of Galle.
Outside Kandy, the holistic wellness resort Santani takes advantage of its mountainside setting—and cooler temperatures—by shunning air-conditioning altogether. Architect Thisara Thanapathy’s minimalist-chic cabins use natural ventilation to keep the guests cool while reducing its carbon footprint.
Purposefully Wi-Fi-free, the cabins orient your sight and attention to the pristine grounds that had been a 48-acre tea plantation.
Its three-story Ayurvedic wellness center manages to be intimate, yet as you walk down each level, it unfolds with different spatial experiences. The treatment rooms, saline pool, and sauna open out to nature, yet remain private from the outside.
Palinda Kannangara has worked on several hospitality projects, but his tour de force is his studio/dwelling just outside Colombo. The complex layers an outer brick wall and an interior concrete wall, with a pond in between. The sun and air filter through the breathing wall; the pathway paved with repurposed materials from old roads and factories frames an adjacent marsh.
Purposely permeable to its environs, the building uses various materials and thicknesses to create cooler fortifications inside, while opening up other spaces, such as an open-air bath.
In fact, the common thread that runs through well-designed spaces in Sri Lanka is the careful balancing act of inviting and keeping out outside elements. On one side the studio’s custom 15-foot windows open out to the marsh, while the other side of the building faces skyscrapers.
