12/05/2026
When Geoffrey Bawa first bought the land that would become Lunuganga, it was nothing remarkable. Just an abandoned rubber estate by the lake, overgrown and uneven, the kind of place most people would have cleared and started over.
But Bawa didn’t rush to change it.
Instead, he began by walking it. Day after day, he wandered through the estate, noticing small things others might miss. A break in the trees that revealed the lake for just a moment. A slope that seemed to guide the eye without effort. A cluster of trees that felt too perfect to disturb.
So the garden began to change, slowly.
A path was carved where his footsteps had worn the ground. A clearing opened where rubber once stood. A view across the water was revealed simply by removing what was in the way. Years passed, and Lunuganga kept growing with him. It was never finished, never fixed into a final form. It shifted with his ideas, becoming the place where he experimented, reflected, and quietly shaped the philosophy that would define his work.
What began as an abandoned estate slowly became something else entirely.
