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Two nonconcentric brothers produce wonderfully idiosyncratic gardens an 60 minutes ’s distance asunder on an enchanted island off the tip of India . Sibling rivalry ? Perhaps . The results : dramatic . I visited both gardens of late , unprepared not only for their beauty and originality but for the classifiable nature of the two men ’s design , each as revealing as diary entries . The brothers , vivid in their own way and as different from one another as their gardens , are go . But here , in youthful brilliance , the two document of their lives bloom on .
Japanese moon gate at Brief Garden . exposure by : Luca Tettoni / Corbis . SEE MORE picture OF THIS GARDEN
The island is Sri Lanka , often described as a tear cling off India ’s southerly slide . Slightly larger than West Virginia , the former Portuguese , Dutch , and British colony , late pluck by civil warfare , retains the staple fibre of a colonial - epoch Shangri-la — jungle , tea plantations , beaches , colorful cities , ancient ruination and rock’n’roll geological formation , spice in the air , and century of Buddhistic shrines and temple . In this arresting tropical landscape , near the southern coastal town of Bentota , the brother Geoffrey and Bevis Bawa carved out the two gardens that have become their legacy .
Sri Lanka ’s is a diverse polish , home to Veddas , Tamils , Burghers , and Moors , fuck locally as Muslims . The Bawa family was connected to the wealthy , elect Burgher club , whose lineage can be follow to 17th - hundred Europeans who settle in Ceylon ( as the island was shout out before 1972 ) . Geoffrey and Bevis ’ father ’s descent was British and Muslim ; their female parent was of European and Sinhalese stock . ( Sri Lankan - bear source Michael Ondaatje , who comes from a Burgher family , wrote vividly about this free - game , hedonistic world in his memoir , run in the Family . )
Bevis ’ pocket-size house , paint a soft peach with terra cotta tiles , admit the jungle in through wood - paneled double doors . Photo by : Dominic Sansoni . SEE MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GARDEN
Geoffrey ( 1919 - 2003 ) is far well known than his pal . After breeding in England to be a attorney , he turned to architecture . He design the island ’s Parliament composite as well as many other public edifice but made his report with his hotels , like the mile - longHeritance Kandalamaoutside of Dambulla , which seems to grow out of the jungle , and theJetwing Lighthousein the coastal city of Galle . Geoffrey ’s practice of combining native material with external modernist style has become enormously influential around the world .
Geoffrey start his garden , calledLunuganga , in the late forties . Sited on a former rubber orchard , its main feature film is a declamatory lake at the bottom of a steep James Jerome Hill . The English landscape painting movement heavily influence his plan . Wide swathes of lawn stretch toward the lake from the original theater ( now a hotel ) , dotted with Frisian Bos taurus ( Geoffrey loved pitch-dark and blank everywhere and adored Dalmatian dogs ) , piss gardens , and miniature rice paddies . A crenelated folly , prettily painted node bungalows , and trickily placed statuary add to the English smell .
Geoffrey had no doubts about the relationship between a designer and his garden . His philosophy was dedicated to the notion of mankind ’s mastery over nature ; he proceed water system , mound , and trees without hesitation . “ The long view to the Confederacy terminate with the temple , ” Geoffrey wrote , “ but in the midway length was a ridge with a excellent ancient moonamal tree diagram , and when I place a large Chinese jar under it , the hired hand of man was established in this middle aloofness . ” Yet Geoffrey ’s genius was to produce a landscape so naturalistic that it could scarcely be identify as gentleman - made . Ondaatje order the write up of a visitor to Lunuganga exclaim , “ But Mr. Bawa , would n’t this be a endearing place to release into a garden ? ” Geoffrey said this was the honorable compliment he ever receive .
Bevis Bawa ( 1909 - 1992 ) used his self-assurance in a dissimilar style . Called theBrief Gardenbecause his don purchase the land after a successful legal brief , Bevis ’ garden is farther inland than his brother ’s , and though it bosom the same tropical landscape , it mull over Bevis ’ indocile temperament and free-and-easy approach to life .
A bulwark separates meadow and hard planted bank . Photo by : Dominic Sansoni . SEE MORE exposure OF THIS GARDEN
Ten years older than Geoffrey and handsome at 6 feet 7 inches , Bevis offer for the Ceylon Light Infantry , serving until his artistic pursuit and his garden won the day . Bevis begin his garden ( also a former rubber plantation ) in 1929 , almost 20 years before his sidekick . His design follow narrow winding pathways through heavy tropical foliation , runs up and down incline , then suddenly opens onto a stairway , a terrace , a pond , or a strategically direct small-arm of sculpture . walk through it one feel that Bevis somehow tamed the jungle for his use , but only momently — stray from the path and you are back in the woodland .
visit both gardens in one mean solar day , I was struck by the multifariousness of emotions they educe . Bevis ’ garden , which I view first , was the Billy Wilder of the two but somehow more comforting and versed . A souse monsoon rain had just finish , leaving a steamy and muggy ambiance with drops of pee still trembling on the ribbon frond and rill of rain rush across the paths like minuscule snakes . No other tourer ventured out in such torridly humid weather , and no guide appeared to play along me . Yet I did not sense solitary . The paths assume me from vista to vista , each more breathless than the last . I feel I was being led by an invisible docent who told me where to stop and search or where to sit and rest . It was magical . At every turn I was aware of the giant ribbon and tropical plant life looming overhead , ready to swoop and come back to the jungle the land Bevis had so cunningly capture .
Geoffrey ’s garden had the diametric consequence . A pathfinder walk me through the long landscape vista of rice paddy fields with the lake as a backdrop , through the carefully arranged chunk of trees , up Cinnamon Hill past the Frisians grazing in the meadow . At the top of the hill , I enjoyed the long view back toward the main sign . Everything feel undetermined to the sky . This garden feel almost intimate to this Englishwoman , specially the presence of the happily grazing cows . Only occasionally did glimpse of tropical plant in the interstice of the garden cue me of where I was .
As I strolled back through Geoffrey ’s graceful , controlled landscape , images of the rather more unconscionable elements of Bevis ’ garden wink through my idea and I began to express joy . Later , I asked David Robson , generator ofBawa : The Sri Lanka Gardens , how he felt about the two garden . “ Brief is introverted , ” he wrote to me , “ a serial of outside rooms with almost no views toward the exterior . It is the more decorative , more eclectic of the two . Geoffrey Bawa may have set out to make a Sri Lankan translation of a European garden , but in the terminal he created something that owe more to Sri Lankan garden - making and landscape traditions . ”
So Bevis made his garden and Geoffrey made his , and after seeing the answer , even if you know nothing about the men who made them , you could do some moderately exact speculating about their personalities . Whatever their differences , Bevis and Geoffrey dug out two incontestible masterpieces from the fat Sri Lankan grunge , producing two separately invigorate garden that belong together as a family record for generation to come .
OTHER shoes TO SEE
TheRoyal Botanic Gardensin Peradeniya , Sri Lanka , northeast of Colombo , encompass 147 acres along the Mahaweli River and has allées of more than 200 species of palms , an orchid house , a giant Java common fig tree tree diagram , and a Victorian - style annual garden . Geoffrey Bawa - designed hotelscan be set up throughout Sri Lanka . For a all dissimilar experience , visit the townsfolk of Nuwara Eliya in the cragged central part of the island where most colonial tea plantations were established . The town is full of English - style cottages and is a large cornerstone from which to research the orchard ( some offer savouring ) and see the gorgeous spectacle of tea bush planted in neat rows along the hillside .
